


Not Over Yet

by sayanara



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Drama, Eremika - Freeform, F/M, Mentions of Cancer, Mutual Pining, Past Chapters, Romance, Slow Build, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 11:54:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 234,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayanara/pseuds/sayanara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two torn ex-lovers grow to rekindle old flames once their paths recross, after nearly six years of learning how to live without each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We're Not Just Dreaming Anymore

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Not Over Yet - Español](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13585830) by [Eien_no_Tsuki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eien_no_Tsuki/pseuds/Eien_no_Tsuki), [ilianka_smoulinka_91](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilianka_smoulinka_91/pseuds/ilianka_smoulinka_91)



> [Leer en Español ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13585830/chapters/31184073) / [Leggi in Italiano](https://efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=3742481&i=1)

 

The candlelight flickers for a long time, casting shadows that shiver with every silent flicker of the flame.

It's cold outside. The wind stirs, howling reminders of what once was, what now should be. Eren holds his hand up to his face, surveying the crescent line that stretches across the palm, calloused by years of molding lumps of clay into shapes and etching figurines on leveled surfaces. He closes his eyes, remembering, but trying so hard to forget. And it's useless, for his scars bear the permanent markings of a lifetime, and at twenty-five, he's lived long enough to be covered in them. From palm, to cheek, to chest, to thigh, to ankle: covered.

Once, there was a time when his skin was taut and pure, unmarred by the symptoms of a harsh life. A time when his hair wasn't so long and his cheeks so stubbly and his mother was alive and the dents between his fingers were made solely to be occupied by those of the girl he was born to come together with. And now all of that—gone. In one breath, life billows and heaves to leave behind only fragments of what once stood so rooted and proud. By the anvil of time, even mountains can be made to ashes, it seems. Even men.

Growing older has often left him wondering when it was that it all went wrong. Was it when he first lost her? His innocence? His compassion? What? He's been sad for so long that it's become his new neutral, his new normal, a syndrome of adulthood, a comfortable state. His eyes—an impossible mix of green and gold and blue—are still vibrant and rich, but a hazy film covers the incandescent shine they once reflected. That is what happens to gazes once they've seen too much. They become heavy with experience. Soiled with it. Dull.

The boyish laughter that once filled him echoes through his past, fading into the stagnant drone that is the present moment. Reminding him that once, long ago, things weren't always this way. They were once okay. Livable. But loss has a way of eroding things, of changing everything.

Dancing shadows grow to consume the walls around him, veiling the room in darkness when, with a sigh, wet fingers pinch the candlewick. He extinguishes the flame.

Just like that.

That's exactly how she left him.

**—o—**

Her scarf flutters in the wind. Mikasa fixes it tighter around her neck, grunting.

It's cold outside. Too cold. She peers down the street, gloved hand waving up to hail, "Taxi!" whence a cab pulls over just a few feet away. She goes to make a run for it, but a blonde man with steely eyes is quick to claim it, pulling on the door handle and shooting her a brief look of indifference before stuffing himself inside.

"Asshole," she spits under her breath.

God, it's cold out here.  _Too damn cold!_

"Taxi!" she calls again, shivering. Her teeth clatter. She curses some more. A few despairing moments later, and she finally manages to steal her way into a cab.

"Where to, Miss?" the driver asks, peering at her through the rearview mirror. His eyes are hooded and dark, almost leering. It occurs to her that she's to entrust her safety to this man, this utter stranger. Who's to say anything keeps him from acting upon perverse impulses and driving off the side of the road with her still inside? Funny, how things work this way, how silent agreements are exchanged between people. Pay them, and a person with dreams and hopes and skills and purposes beyond driving a cab become mere services that carry you from one place to the next, a tool to use in exchange for money. People using people. It's just the way it goes.

"Ma'am?"

Her eyes dart back to focus.

Through the mirror, she sees him wait.

"Where to?"

 _As far away from here as possible_ , she's tempted to say. Although it hits her— _Why?_  Why would she want to say that?

She shakes her head.

Pronounces the address.

The driver gives a single nod, and soon enough, his foot is pushing down the gas pedal, hands are turning the steering wheel, and Mikasa is that much farther away from home.

She stares at the moving world outside, blurry city lights sliding past her eyes, illuminating her face through the glass of the window. Absently, her hand finds the scarf coiled around her neck, fingers pinching the fabric, feeling it, caressing it.

Remembering.

It's so tempting to delve deeper into her thoughts until they utterly consume her, to allow herself to wander and to feel. For once—just once—to truly  _feel_ something. But Mikasa is strong. Much, much stronger than that. There's no time for fantasies, that time has long since passed. She's not a child anymore. She's a woman now. A full-grown woman.

The shimmering engagement ring claiming her left hand and the hard, wet kiss her fiancé plants on her cheek when he greets her is enough to remind her of that.

**—o—**

Move. He has to move.

Perhaps it's the chill in his apartment or the lull of sitting still for so many hours but Eren's muscles ache. Get up, they screech. Up. Walk. Move. Get the hell out of here.

He stands, stops by the window, peers out.

His eyes deceive him, for they claim to see her, but he knows it's not really true. Her dark hair up in a ponytail, swaying with every gentle glide of her legs, beaming with recognition. But then the small head turns to reveal a face so foreign it's disgusting. And Eren—always—is disappointed to learn the truth. It's never her. Never. His eyes haven't caught the real sight of her in years.

In five. In five whole years, actually.

All that time has passed since he last saw her, held her, ran his fingers through her hair. Kissed her, loved her, heard her sigh his name. Heard her gasp it. And with the gradual ascend and descend of their chests, and the soft releases of her breath, he belonged to her as much as his own name belonged to him. He was hers. Hers entirely.

And that's the problem with belonging to people. You don't know how to belong to yourself.

Lost, he's ambled through the past five years like a ghost swimming in its shell, utterly disconnected from his body. He was hers for so long that taking a breath without having her sighs to synchronize with became foreign. How can his lungs work without respiring in harmony with hers? How can his heart beat without having her pulse to guide it? How can he live? How? How?

How?

It's not that Eren feels alive, but he keeps on existing.

Amazing, what's become of him. He isn't a child anymore, for the stubble on his cheeks and his unkempt, long hair are enough to remind him of that. He's an adult now. A full-grown adult.

A failure. A big fucking failure.

He sighs, glances out the window again. The wind is so strong it practically rattles the windows, but his bones creak from the cold and his muscles scream for motion. He has to do something. He has to move.

So, soon enough, a coat is lading his shoulders, apartment keys and leather wallet have been shoved into the back pocket of his jeans, and the door is slamming shut behind him in his egress.

**—o—**

Mikasa's tired.

Tired of this dress. Tired of this party. Tired of these people. Tired.

Her fiancé's rambling on beside her, talking about some kind of sport she doesn't particularly care about with an arm looped around her waist and a smile on his face, holding her close to him like his very own shiny, life-sized trophy. And he shows her off. He  _loves_  to show off his trophies.

Mikasa nods and smiles, offering polite little gestures of attention and appreciation to the guests, even though her mind has long become numb to the bureaucratic routine. Talk, talk, talk. Impress, impress, impress. Money, money, money. That's all these people care about.

Since she was very young, Mikasa always knew she was different. She was what most people would call "aloof" or, in simpler terms, "disconnected." Lost in her own little world, she's used her imagination to escape from the pain of reality for as long as she can remember. And it's painful. Existing is painful. Pretending to care about half of the junk that comes out of these people's mouths—painful. Painful. Ugh.

Her eyes land on the view through a tall window, muffled voices around her dwindling to the back of her mind. Outside, the tree branches bend and sway, moving to the sibilant winter air. She shudders, and she longs. Even though it's cold and windy, how nice wouldn't it be to be outside right now? She feels like she belongs out there—more than she belongs in here, anyway.

She's fixing a tiny tendril that has escaped her fancy updo behind her ear when her fiancé notices her being distracted, eyes still glued to the bending trees, so he plants another wet kiss on her cheek to capture her attention.

Mikasa jumps, slightly flustered.

"What's wrong?" he asks her, a big grin etched on his face. It's like his facial expressions never match the words that come out of his mouth. Devoid of any signs of concern or worry, he voices, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she says, managing a tiny smile.

He gives her a sideways stare, scrutinizing her. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"Are you thirsty?"

"No."

"Can I get you anything?"

Mikasa sighs. He's always aiming to please her. Her, and the attentive eyes that watch them. With a smile that seems almost plastic, one of the ladies that stands in the circle around them eyes her up and down, sizing her up, the way some women do.

"Jean," she sighs, untangling his arm from around her waist. "I'll be right back, okay? I have to go to the ladies room."

He flashes her a smile, says alright, and Mikasa is making her way through the mingling crowd of foreign people before he—or anyone else surrounding them—can say anything more to her. She feels a suffocating need to flee. No more people, no more words. No more no more no more.

She reaches for her jacket, fixes her scarf around her neck, loops her tiny purse over her shoulder, and escapes through the back door, sparing a quick glance behind her.

She doesn't think anybody saw her leave. And it's not like any of them really care about her leaving. It's not like any of them can pronounce her name correctly—or even remember it, at that.

" _Wait, what's your name? Mik... Mi… what?"_

" _Mikasa."_

They always laugh. Like her name is some kind of sick joke or something.

" _Wait, how do you pronounce that again?"_

" _Mee-kah-sah. Mikasa."_

" _Oh, my God!"_  they cackle.  _"That's so wonderful!"_

Jesus. Everything is wonderful. Like the fact that she's half Japanese, and the fact she's named after a battle ship, and the fact that everybody swears she's pregnant for agreeing to marry Jean so soon.

She won't ever admit this to herself, but their comments sometimes hurt her.

Sometimes.

As soon as she's outside, she spots one of the guests leaned against a wall, sporting fancy trousers and a silk shirt under a black coat. She gives him a faint smile. He takes a long pull from his cigarette. They stand in silence. All is still.

And for a second she belongs.

Here. In the cold. Accompanied by a stranger she entrust her safety to. Because he could act perversely if he wanted. He could flick the ashes from his cigarette onto the supple surface of her skin. But he doesn't. And she stands, with company but isolated and all sorts of twisted up inside.

"You alright?" he asks suddenly, blowing smoke out of his nose.

Mikasa nods her head politely, assuring him she's fine.

"Congratulations," he tells her then, and she thanks him nobly, forcing another smile, another small bow of her head—and  _God,_  it hurts to have manners sometimes.

Yes, yes, yes, congratulations. She's going to be a wife soon. This is her engagement party. How exciting is that? How lucky is she?

But as she's making her way down the street, scarf fluttering gently in the wind, feet slowly treading one step after the other, Mikasa has to admit:

She isn't feeling very lucky at all.

**—o—**

Eren's shoulders raise against the chilly air. He keeps on walking, not bothering to take shelter from the cold. He just has to walk. Something inside him reverberates  _walk, walk, walk. Just walk, Eren. Walk._

So he does.

He treads on aimlessly, stuffing his hands into his pockets and exhaling heavily through his nose. His breath turns to fog before him, swiftly carried away by the wind. There's music playing outside. Christmas music. His eyes briefly wander over the street, noticing the absence of snow decorating anything. A snow-less Christmas is approaching. Those are the worst. They remind him of—

" _Ow!_ "

"Hey!"

It all happens in an instant.

He's falling forward, catches something. A woman. She's falling too.

His arms are frantic, circling around her waist, stopping her from bouncing right off his chest where she'd rammed into him violently. One of his hands flies free, and he holds himself upright from the nearest wall it can land on to stop them both from falling to the ground like a pair of broken puppets.

He's breathing heavily. Panting. They both are.

Then he's angry.

He pulls the woman back, gazing down to catch a good look of her.

 _Watch where the hell you're going!_ The words are right there. Right there, hanging by the very tip of his tongue. But suddenly, Eren can't speak or breathe or think because… because…

Because suddenly, he sees her.

_Her._

She's staring up at him, wide-eyed, her irises deep pools of black ink he knows so well, so damn well. His voice falters. All of him does.

But the girl gasps then, clasping his collar feverishly and breathing a bewildered, " _Eren?_ "

**—o—**

It's him.

Him.

This is a dream. It has to be a dream. It has to be. But no. No, no,  _no it isn't_. Eren smiles, his emerald eyes shimmering as his face brightens, one sleepy feature at a time.

"Mikasa?" he whispers, astonished. His hands grip her shoulders. "Oh my... holy..." Eren's voice is tight, strangled with excitement. " _Fuck_. Holy...  _Holy shit!_ "

Mikasa laughs. Eren's flabbergasted, slapping a hand on his forehead like he can't believe what's happening to him. He lifts her up gently, carefully, pulling her to stand upright on her feet. She's so light in his arms, so so so light. So much lighter than he remembers her ever being. A porcelain creature, a delicate doll. "It's you," he whispers, as if voicing it will make her that much more real. "It's you!"

"I'm—"

"I can't—"

"It's like—."

"Mikasa, I—"

The way she stands, poised and elegant as always, is a clear presentation of the girl he remembers so vividly. Eren isn't dreaming. She's real. The girl standing before him—Mikasa Ackerman— _it's really her!_

But Mikasa can't bring herself to realize what's happening at all. Something in her mind tells her this is all just another dream of hers. She's gotten so used to dreams, you see, used to phantom memories of him, to the abrupt awakenings that always follow. She never wants to wake up when she has those either, those perfect dreams of him. So she thinks,  _maybe if I just play along, I won't wake up this time. Let me play along, and the dream will never end._

But then Eren lets go of her, and Mikasa sees that she's still clinging to his shirt.

Clinging.

To his shirt.

Clinging.

Wait. She holds the fabric between her fingers. Pinching it. Feeling it. Caressing it.

Remembering.

Her features melt, eyes growing enormously wide, all the color draining out of her face until she's stone cold white. "E-E..." her voice cracks. "W-wait.  _Eren!?_ "

His lips part in equal astonishment. He pants, running a hand through his hair, feeling extremely self-conscious. "Um." He glances down at her hands, still holding him in place. His voice is easy, gentle, so soft. "Yes. Yes, it's me. Eren."

"Eren?" she asks again, eyes growing even wider.

"Uh–" he laughs. "Mikasa," he's saying slowly, pressing his hands to his chest. "It's me! It's me, Mikasa. It's Eren!"

Mikasa's eyes are giant saucers, her face frozen in shock. Eren feels a small chuckle pass through his lips, taking flight to precise nuances he has not heard himself pronounce before. Has he ever laughed this way? Ever felt this way? Ever stood where he stands and looked at what he's looking at? Mikasa, the Mikasa of his dreams, the Mikasa of his past, his Mikasa manifested as a maiden of red dresses and fancy updos and frost-kissed roseate cheeks.

"Oh," she heaves suddenly, holding a hand to one side of her face. She turns away from him, paces back and forth and Eren keeps his eyes glued to her, only her.

She's walking around in circles when Eren studies what she's wearing. It's a crimson dress, tight around her torso. It falls just above her knees, and her coat is thick and woolen and expensive. Her hair is up in a neat little arrangement, too. She almost doesn't even seem like herself.

His eyes fall to the floor then, drawn by the solid  _thck, thck, thck_  sound that follows each of her footsteps and… holy shit, is she wearing  _heels_?

Abruptly, Mikasa whips around to face him, and Eren's neck literally jerks back at the startling sight of her. Every time he looks at her is as if he's laying eyes on her for the very first time. "Eren," she pronounces slowly, savoring every precious syllable. "What on Earth are you doing here?"

"Well, I live here. I've been living here for the past five years. New Years will mark my sixth."

Her voice is lost in a whisper. "Have you?

"Yes," he breathes, smiling. "Yeah, this is where I've been. What about you? What are you doing here?"

"I just..." she pauses, feeling her heart pounding in her chest. Alive. So vibrant and alive and happy. Inflated with elation, she sighs, "I'm just out for a walk. You know, just, looking around? I'm new to the city, you see, and have only been here for, well, it doesn't really matter I guess. Point is, my fiancé found a good job downtown, and he used to live here so—"

Eren's eyes wince. "Wait, what?"

"What?"

"Fiancé?" he echoes, hating the way his voice sounds. So breathless. So... appalled.

"Um." Mikasa glances down at her hands. They're shaking. "Yes," she says, re-adjusting the strap of her purse on her shoulder. "Yeah, I'm getting married in a few weeks."

Eren opens his mouth. No words come out of him.

A few  _weeks?_

Why? How? How could time be measured so precisely? How could something so delicate be compacted into the suffocating walls of  _a few weeks_? Whatever happened to them? To lovers meeting once again? To time stopping to make room for forever?

He feels his heart sink in his chest. "That's…" Odd. Painful. Abnormally devastating and just… "Wonderful!"

"Really?"

No. "Yeah!"

"Oh."

"Congratulations, Mikasa!"

"Thank you," she smiles, gazing down at the ground. "Everyone tells me the same thing. They all think it's great that I'm settling down now. I'm very happy."

He narrows his eyes, nodding. But he can't help noticing that her words sound somewhat fabricated, like she's been repeating them to herself the way an actor over-practices their lines and ends up sounding monotonous at the delivery.

He doesn't really believe her.

And part of her suspects that, too.

"Yeah," he chuckles, scratching a stubbly cheek. "It's wonderful, Mikasa. Really. I'm very happy for you."

And that's when Eren sees it. Her left hand reaches to touch the fabric wrapped around her neck and his eyes catch the startling presence of a large diamond ring around her long, thin finger. Jesus. Just looking at the damn thing hurts. It's so large, so bold. So unnecessary.

But then… He notices something else. And it's his scarf.  _His_  scarf, draped around  _her_  neck, brilliant and radiant, like a statement decoration. His scarf! On her neck! She's wearing it!

Eren smirks.

He can't help feeling, by the way it stands out so blissfully from the rest of her clothes, that it actually doesn't go with her outfit. Like it doesn't actually belong there. But it's there, because it's  _her_. That scarf is as much a part of her as her own limbs are—even now, after all this time!

Eren's smirk broadens into a smile.

The scarf is like a mark, a declaration. His own flag stabbed into soil, erected proudly and claiming victory over the land, branding it as his own.

"I was just making my way to eat something," she tells him, and part of her doesn't even know why she's admitting that. She may as well confess her entire situation. She may as well blurt out,  _Hey, Eren. I know I haven't seen you in over five years and all but you should know that I'm engaged to this wonderful man whose friends are all asses who can't even remember my name or pronounce it correctly. Actually, I'm fleeing my own engagement party as we speak! Isn't that wonderful?_ But she knows better. She knows better than to linger with him even a second longer. That's dangerous. That's  _wrong_. She should say goodbye. She should walk away and run as far away from him as she can get. Because their past. Because they're both rich, too rich, with raw memories.

But she can't.

She can't bring herself to do it, to part from him, from his brown hair and his stubbly face and his glowing eyes and that dimple on his cheek that always flashes when he smiles. She's glued. Stuck. Like a nail drawn to a magnet.

"So was I," Eren murmurs, disrupting any further speech from her. "Do you wanna come with? I know this great place just a few blocks away."

Mikasa parts her lips to object, wailing alarms going off in her head screeching  _danger, danger, danger!_ "Um, no. I–"

"Oh, come on," he insists, swaying on his feet. "We haven't seen each other in  _so long_! Come on, Mikasa, please? What's the worse that can happen?"

She's quiet for a moment.

Tentatively, she glances over her shoulder, searching silently for a figure in the dark.

There's no one there behind her.

She sighs.  _Of course there isn't._

"Alright," she peeps, still convinced that she's caught within a dream, that whatever's happening  _has_  to be fake, unreal, just a figment of her imagination. But there's nothing fake about the way Eren's eyes light up, as if they've been engulfed in bright flames. He smiles at her. Beams.

And Mikasa smiles back. "I think I'd love that," she titters, smoothing her hair behind her ears. "You could show me around while we're at it, too. I'm still new to this place, so I could use all the help I can get?"

Eren practically implodes with excitement. "Sure! Your fiancé hasn't shown you around?"

"No," she huffs, thinking of Jean, the party she's fleeing, the ridiculous irony of her life. "He's... a busy man."

"Ah," Eren nods, "I guess it's a good thing I get to do the honors, then."

Mikasa rolls her eyes at him, and Eren—he just laughs. He laughs. A few moments ago, he was a lost man. A wandering man. A wanderer. Now he's found. He's found. Discovered.

He drags a hand through his hair, and it falls just over his shoulders, wisping out slightly at the ends. He looks so different, so worn. Rugged and austere. Troubled. Yet so new, so new. This is what the sun must feel like when it meets the world again each morning. Like it's been there before, yet everything is different. Reintroduced.

Mikasa bites her lip.

Something inside of her screams  _wake up, wake up, wakeupwakeupwakeup!_

But she isn't dreaming anymore. This time, Eren is here for real. And he is nothing— _absolutely nothing_ —like the man she's seen in her dreams for so long. Because people grow and become different, and the marks of time's passing has embroidered change onto them both.

She tightens her coat around her figure, diamond ring shimmering slightly in the light.

Eren feels for his wallet in his pocket. He feels his pulse in his ears—thump, thump, thump, reverberating the image of her, the feel of her, existing right there in front of him.

And his eyes haven't caught the true sight of her in years.

But now they do. But now they do.

That's when Mikasa offers him another one of her smiles, and Eren feels like the luckiest man in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Be sure to leave a review, and/or talk to me on [tumblr](http://natiwati.tumblr.com/). Let me know what you think, please :)


	2. Your Scent, Your Colors

_Black._

Short, obsidian hair. Tresses that spill down like waterfalls. Eyes so black you swear they can suck you in whole, keep you prisoner within the cells of her abyss forever. Her hands, her hair, her chest. The little dimples decorating the small of her back… They were all so beautiful. So perfect. So entirely her.

But they torment him. For years, that's all they've ever done. All these things stand as the grim reminders of all that Eren has ever lost. They remind him that everything was shattered as soon as that door fell shut behind her when she left.

_As soon as that rear view mirror had been ignored._

_As soon as those two cars had collided... and a frail body had been propelled straight out and thrown onto the sidewalk._

_And Eren had been too late._

_Eren had been too late to save him._

Those were the things, the two simple things: beauty and tragedy. They were the catalysts for what he has become today, a haunting shell of what he once was. An empty carcass.

A nobody.

Eren had died along with _him_.

Eren had perished at the permanent absence of _her_.

But then, as if someone has flipped on a switch, he is, just as suddenly, brought back to life. He is alive again.

He's alive.

He finds himself holding on to every shaky sigh, every nervous laughter, clinging to every passing second as if it were his very last.

Because once, there had been a promise, a vow: _"Always, Eren. I will always be with you."_

And the girl...

The girl.

She is all that he can see. Like a fervent beacon, her light is brilliant and intense. Blinding. Real.

And he sees her.

He sees her even though his eyes are merely glued onto the ground.

 

**—o—**

 

_Green._

Eyes so green, the earth grew envious of them. Eyes that crinkled as he laughed, that flared when he was angry, that shimmered blue-green when he cried, as if the ocean decided to claim what the earth was too afraid to touch.

Green. The color of life, of all living things. The trees, the leaves—even the blue sky... they all lived within them. As far as she was concerned, everything that ever lived resided right in there... within those two brilliant orbs carved onto his face.

His eyes. She'd loved them. She'd loved _him_.

Times with him were like radiant bursts that marked the timeline of her existence. Wherever Eren had been, wherever he'd touched, became a place that would glow and burn for as long as there was any breath left within her, like a flame that refuses ever to give out.

And that was him. That was Eren.

He was a flare, a fire, a wild frenzy of emotions that palpitated with every breath. He was music. A song. A spectrum of bright colors and loud, discordant sounds that blended into soulful, quiet tunes. Tunes that only she could hear.

But then the light had begun to fade once, and the colors no longer bled through. All music ceased... after that terrible accident, and the bright spectacle of green had slowly fogged into black. Beyond the stretching tint of blackness, her eyes could no longer catch the sight of anything at all. Only darkness. Only plaguing nightmares and empty dreams.

And Mikasa had forgotten what it was like to be alive then...

Until, suddenly, someone turned on that light.

 

**—o—**

 

Ice particles crackle beneath the soles of their shoes, leisured steps synchronizing with one another. All is silent, save for the solemn murmurs a breeze that tosses his hair, ruffles the skirt of her dress and nips at the bare expanses of her legs. And Eren unbecomes, cancels anything he has ever been to be nothing but this, what he is now, this very moment. Whereas once the arrow of time pointed him backwards to the past, now it pulls him forward, unraveling delicately, piece by piece, step by step, second by second. And the girl remains beside him. Breathing. Radiant. Alive. Although he feels that at any moment she may vanish, like a wisp of smoke lost to the wind—she’s here. She’s here. With him.

Mustering the courage to acknowledge the dazzling presence by his side, he finds her already staring. “Eren,” comes her voice, all lisp and breathless and familiar.

“Yeah?” he breathes, fascinated.

“I was thinking,” her eyes fall to the ground, following their footsteps. “Um… perhaps it’s best if we…”

“If we what?”

“If we just… grab something to eat? Catch up for a bit? I should have mentioned, I have somewhere I need to be.”

“Oh.”

“I should’ve mentioned—”

“It’s alright.”

“I really—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No—”

“It’s—”

“Wait—”

“Yes?”

“I’m just—”

“What?”

They halt. Mikasa scoffs, shakes her head, lifts a gloved had to her cheek. It blooms. Pink with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and Eren smiles.

“No, I’m sorry. You talk. I interrupted.”

“I’m just…” she begins, standing still in all her grace, all her splendor. Eren stares at the wisps of her eyelashes, the tip of her nose, the corners of her mouth that curve up ever so slightly. “I’m… I’m just really happy to see you.”

His smile grows. “Me too.”

It’s a few moments before they begin walking again.

“Well… that’s fine,” Eren says after a while, peering at her through the corners of his eyes. “I was going to suggest that anyway since, you know, it’s cold out and all you’re wearing is a dress.”

Mikasa sighs. “It’s a long story.”

“I bet.”

And they’ve got time, they’ve got time. Enough time to walk and wallow in the sound of each and every one of their footsteps. Enough time to peek sheepishly at one another and then coyly look away. Enough time for Eren to dash suddenly to a door by Mikasa’s right and hold it open, beaming, “We’re here!”

Mikasa balks. “Here?”

“Yep!”

“Here where?”

“Well, you wanted to grab a bite, didn’t ya?”

“I mean…”

“So, here we are!”

So there they are. And the place looks… foreign. Quaint. French? Certainly not English.

“Sasha’s café et boulangerie.” Yep. Not English. “It’s French.” Ah.

He beckons for her to go inside.

Mikasa raises a brow at him and questions, "Did you just pick this place out on a whim?"

"Yes," he grins, and his bright eyes crinkle slightly at the edges. "Well, no. Not exactly. My friend owns this place, so I might be a bit biased, but they serve the coolest food! This place is awesome!"

Mikasa snorts gently into her fist, shaking her head.

"What?" Eren smiles, still holding the door open. Customers inside are beginning to eye him suspiciously.

"Nothing," she says, smoothing out her dress. "Nothing. Let's just go inside."

Calmly, she makes her way past him, into the cafe, and that's when Eren catches her scent. It cements him in place, for he’s swarmed with a current of emotions. She smells nothing like the girl of his past, her clothes tinged with a perfume so rich and expensive it leaves him aghast. Skin that pure was not made to be tainted by such artificial scents. She smells like a leggy model he’d once hooked up with, and although her face has been blurred in his memory, he still remembers the Chanel No. 5 that had seared his senses numb, a perfume meant to entice defying its purpose. And now this same scent is on Mikasa. Her.

Unaware, she stands in the queue leading to the front counter, staring up at the different options of food and beverages scribbled on the chalkboard menu hanging by the wall behind the small barista girl, racking her brain and trying to make out what a _tarte tatin_ and a _tarte au chocolat_ are. And she’s so oblivious, so lost to the qualms that seethe within him, so disconnected from the world. She stands as if amid an altar, unadulterated by her surroundings, and Eren watches her peruse the menu, ignoring the plethora of desserts inside a glassed display right in front of her.

He smirks. Oh, Mikasa. She really is just odd like that. It's pleasantly reassuring for him to know that at least that little bit of her hasn't changed at all. Always one to make simple things so unnecessarily difficult.

"What's a..." she peers behind her to speak to him as he makes his way to stand by her side, "tartee... _tateen?_ "

Eren scoffs. "You mean, a _tarte tatin?_ "

"Yeah. That's what I meant."

"Um..." He looks down at her hands. They're trembling. He glances at her shoulders. Shivering. Mikasa's still cold.

Eren closes his eyes and sighs. If this had been five, maybe six years ago, he would've wrapped his arms around her and rubbed his hands over her arms, offering her his own heat until her body stopped shivering. An old, primal need for him to do so stirs within him, but he, of course, ignores it.

"It's a type of upside-down apple tart," he answers finally, crinkling his nose. "You won't like it."

"And a _tarte au_ ... Ugh. _That_." She points at the French scribble on the menu.

Eren leans in a little closer to her, following the line of her finger. "Ah, _tarte au chocolat?_ "

She nods, slightly shaken by his close proximity.

"Chocolate tart," he says with a smirk. "Like a chocolate pie. _Dark_ chocolate."

At that, Mikasa's mouth falls open, her eyes popping into wide circles.

He simpers, "Oh, you'd _love_ that."

"Yes," she muses, her eyes glowing like a child's. "Yes, that's what I want."

"Alright." Eren digs his hand into his pocket to pull out his wallet. "If you want, you could go find us a place to sit."

"What?"

"A place to sit, Mikasa. Go find one."

"Why?"

He stares at her for a moment, blinking."What do you mean why?"

"Uh–" She nearly slaps herself over the head. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ "I just—" she shakes her head, mumbles, "never mind."

"I mean, unless you wanna try your luck ordering in French?" he smirks again, the curvature of his lips complementing the arch of his brow as he mocks, "From what I just heard, it sounds like you could use all the practice you can get."

"Oh, shut up," she retorts, punching him lightly on the shoulder, which makes him wince, laughing. "I'll go find us seats, then. So you can take your sweet time ordering in _French_."

As Mikasa walks away, Eren rubs his shoulder imperceptibly. Fuck, that girl is still strong. But he smiles stupidly to himself. He can't help it. The corners of his lips stretch in silent bliss, and Eren doesn't dare fight the warm feeling that washes over him. He feels flattered. Perhaps even a bit lucky, too.

That's the first time she touches him.

He closes his eyes and relishes at the contact, engraving it into his mind, as if keeping mental notes of their time together will make the situation that much more of a reality somehow:

_The first time in nearly six years that Mikasa touches me: A punch on the arm after I practically insulted her intelligence._

_Nice._

**—o—**

 

Something citrus with a hint of ginger and nutmeg. And then the natural scent of his woody musk… Lord. Eren smells exactly the same as before. _Exactly the same!_ How is that even possible? After all this time? He still smells of youth, of nature, of the wind outside. Of Old Spice deodorant and just... _boy._ Nothing like the scent of men's poignant cologne her nose has been violated into numbly accepting by now.

Mikasa inhales deeply through her nose, and even the wafting aroma of coffee and pastries permeating the cafe fail to ward off that persistent smell of his from her senses.

She feels... _sensitive._ Raw.

Maybe being near him just does that to her. His presence causes something to throb to life inside of her, something she can't really fathom. But perhaps it's just a bit too early into the night for her to understand. So, with a long sigh, Mikasa resumes her hunt for a free table, thinking to herself that it's stupid to feel anything from merely his presence and his smell. He probably hasn't even noticed _hers._

She finds a table by a window. It's small. Two tall chairs are tucked neatly underneath it. She decides to claim it, but then thinks about her heels, and her dress. Maybe sitting there isn't such a good idea, and the fact that they would be right by the window means people can see her if they walk by and…

_And that means Jean would be able to see her if he's looking for her._

She turns around, picks out the most isolated table and decides that that's the one. She sheds the coat and purse from her shoulders, placing them over the back of one of the chairs before sitting down, but not before feeling utterly uncomfortable at the way seemingly every pair of eyes turns to land on her. People whisper quietly among themselves as they gawk unbiddenly. They're probably wondering what the hell is wrong with her, wearing such a short dress in the middle of winter.

 _I'm fleeing my own engagement party,_ she wants to sing out to all of them, let them in on the funny joke that is her life. But she doesn't say anything. Just lets out a tiny huff of exasperation before taking her seat.

She doesn't like the view from where she sits, though, facing the wall, and she can still feel people's stares chipping away at her back, so she stands up and switches to the booth across from her, leaving the chair for Eren to take without bothering to retrieve any of her stuff.

She crosses her legs, balancing a heel from the tips of her toes and bouncing her foot up and down, back and forth. From this angle, she can glare at anyone who stares. And also…

And also, she can see Eren. She can see him so well.

He's talking quietly to the barista girl and Mikasa can't hear a thing he says. Sitting in the cafe, only a stone throw away from one another, she suddenly feels deprived of him, like they are once again worlds apart. As if, if they aren't physically together, standing right next to each other, touching, then they aren't even in the same room at all.

The barista giggles and smiles coyly at his comments, and Mikasa can't help but smile too. Her imagination conjures all sorts of words he might be uttering, trying to make out the muted movements of his lips as if they danced to a song she could decipher.

She watches as the girl brushes a lock of hair behind her ear, batting her eyelashes at him like some sort of ravenous, blind bat.

Mikasa simpers. _Gross._

Eren says something else, and the girl starts bursting into giggles all over again, flipping her hair and curving her lips into a minx-like, clammy smile that has Mikasa practically choking back a gag. But then she sees Eren fishing through his wallet. And she gasps.

What an asshole she's being! She can't let him pay for her! That's so rude!

Mikasa scrambles to rise to her feet but, at that same instant, she sees an elderly man peering at her from over the thick rim of his glasses, a judgmental look scrunching up the wrinkles on his face. She's once again reminded of what she's wearing.

She swears under her breath. "Poop."

Melting back into her seat, she curses herself and everyone else in the entire place save for Eren. Why are they all still staring at her? Have they never seen a woman in heels and a dress before? Ugh.

That’s when she realized that Eren is approaching. And she marvels at his appearance, at his long, unkempt hair that he’s tucked behind his ears, at the stubble on his face that masks the smoothness of his features, at the length of his fingers that hold two steaming cups and stretch out below a plate of… Oh, my God.

_Chocolate._

She eyes the chocolate tart that is so dense, so dark, it’s practically the same color as her hair. She’s nearly drooling by the time Eren’s reached her, but then her eyes divert to admire the way his hands hold the dessert so delicately, how the veins protrude near his knuckles under a blanket of tanned skin. And she remembers how they’d felt, so small and fragile in their childhood, only to roughen and callus through the years. And she wonders now how they must feel now, after all these years, if time has made them softer, gentler, friendlier. Because once, they served as weapons, as fists that broke skin and bones and fought against the cruelness of the world. But now all of him is a stranger. All of him is so new.

"You alright?" He asks her, setting down the drinks and plate on the table.

"Yeah, why?"

"You're blushing."

Mikasa almost falls out of her seat.

"What?" She chokes on a scoff, a wave of heat washing down her body. " _N-no_. No, I'm not. I'm just... I'm just cold, that's all."

"Oh." Eren nods his head slowly, seeming almost unconvinced, but he says nothing more on the matter, only hands her a fork before pushing the plate to her end of the table.

"So," he says, taking the seat across from her without bothering to remove her things, "it's good to know you still like chocolate. At least that much hasn't changed."

She nods, uncoiling the scarf around her neck. And he watches the way that damned diamond ring shimmers as she brings her hands to clutch the fabric. It's such a damn contradiction, that something so brash can come that close to something as precious as his own gift to her. His own scarf.

Eren knows he should tear his eyes away from her then. But he doesn't. He's practically holding his breath, eyeing the newly exposed skin of her neck like a blind man regaining vision. Without the scarf, he can really see what she's wearing. The dress is short-sleeved and a deep red color that bounces off the paleness of her skin like a traffic light in the night. A thin layer of lacy designs decorate the fabric, like an afterthought to make the rather simple dress seem more elegant.

His eyes scurry further down. It's not _too_ low-cut, but the dress fits a bit too tight around her bosom, which pushes her breasts back against her chest and huddles them close together, causing a thin slit to poke out from a place the dress can't reach to cover.

Suddenly, Eren's forgotten how to breathe.

He feels a solid pang. Pain. It slams into his chest with rapid force as he remembers… Her chest... _her chest._ That same chest that cages in her fervent heartbeat, the one he felt so well the night she left.

_When he'd laid himself on top of her, dog-tired, and her heart had slammed against his ear like a drum._

_And she was alive. And he was alive._

_Because he was hers, and she was his, and her skin was only his to claim when he'd fogged it with his breath, and his lips had collected tiny beads of her sweat as they grazed the surface. And he'd kissed it. And she'd moaned._

_His name._

_His._

_She'd gasped it. Again and again like some sort of desperate litany while he moved in her and she clawed at his skin as if she could absorb him into her own. And Eren had felt her tremble underneath him as his mouth marked her neck, and his hands filled with her breasts, and she'd poured his name out her lips like it took all the strength within her, even though neither of them had had any left._

And that was it. The last thing he'd ever heard her say to him. His sorry, broken name.

Mikasa isn't really looking at him, rather occupied with folding the scarf neatly and placing it above her lap, but Eren clenches his jaw and rips his eyes away from her, staring at some insignificant point in space, feeling his abdomen flush like shit down a toilet.

Damn it, damn it, _damn it all._

She's not his anymore. _She's not._ The obsidian hair, the abyssal eyes, the currant with raspberries smell of her skin and the little dimples on her back and her hands and chest and just... _her._ All her scents, all her colors, they all belong to someone else now. They're for someone else to claim, to kiss. To mark with his own lips. Why can't his rotten brain just fucking understand that? Why does he have to rattle himself into pain now? _Already?_

He doesn't know who her fiancé is but already, Eren decides that he hates him.

Miksasa peers at him, stricken by what she finds. He isn't looking at her and he seems mad. His brows furrow in displeasure and the corner or his jaw does that little thing it always does when he clenches it. She feels her face burn even more, convinced somehow that it's because of something she's done to him. Had he been offended by her blushing somehow? Did it make him mad that she'd let him pay? What's wrong with him?

Tentatively, she begins eating her food nonetheless. It isn't in her place to ask him anything about it. It's not like they're even friends, anyway... Just two lonesome idiots who'd bumped into each other in the middle of the night.

She chews decadently on a piece of the dessert, and her taste buds practically screaming at the chocolaty explosion of _tartie au chocco_ —ah, whatever. Chocolate pie.

"Do you like it?" Eren asks her, and Mikasa nearly jumps, not expecting the sound of his voice to disrupt the silence so suddenly.

He sees her shrug rather apathetically though, her eyes trained coolly on the table and face fixed into a blank slate, scrubbed clean of all emotion.

He frowns. She isn't looking at him. Why not? Does she not like it? Does she... _Does she not like chocolate anymore?_

"Mikasa," he says.

Her eyes slowly rise to meet him.

“You do still like chocolate, right?” It’s so dumb, but yet so terribly important.

And she blinks slowly, droning, “No. I’ve developed a terrible intolerance to cacao. I want you to know, Eren, that I will die now, all because you fed me something that I am terribly allergic to. You cannot fathom the damage you have caused.”

He opens his mouth to speak, to say something—anything—but he's not even sure what to say to her.

That's when he sees her pinch her bottom lip between her teeth, her face slowly turning into a strained display of suppression until suddenly… Mikasa breaks into a bout laughter.

"Just kidding," she says through her giggles. "Why would I ask for a chocolate pie if I didn't like chocolate? Really, Eren?"

He sighs. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What?"

"That's not funny."

She shrugs, wiping the corner of her mouth with the edge of her wrist and smiling. "I think it is."

"Well, it's not."

"It is for me."

Eren shakes his head. "God, you're still a weirdo."

She holds up her fork, licking the leftover chocolate residue from the back lewdly before dipping it into her mouth.

He grimaces.

She laughs again, her shoulders trembling.

"I get it." Eren tries to fight the smile that threatens to seize his lips, but the sound of her laughter and the way her bare shoulders shake with every giggle make it hard for him to succeed. "You still like chocolate. No need to be so gross."

"Sorry," she says, suddenly bashful. "But maybe you shouldn't ask such stupid questions, Eren."

"Or perhaps you should invest on a better sense of humor."

She kicks his leg subtly from underneath the table.

"Ow!" he groans. "What the hell?"

"That's the second time you pick on me tonight. And it's hardly been twenty minutes since we ran into each other."

Eren's leg throbs where she kicked him. Jesus-fuck. And to think she did it with her bare foot.

"I can't help it," he says, bringing his drink to his lips. "I'm too used to teasing you."

"Well, then stop," she retorts, slicing the edge of the fork into her dessert. "Unless you want to end up without any limbs by the end of the night. You know"—she waves the fork around in the air between them as if it were a sword—"my specialty is slicing up flesh."

"Oh?" Eren's lips curve into a smile against the rim of the cup. "Is that so? You've always been all talk and no show, Ackerman."

"Watch it, Jaeger," she menaces.

Eren can't contain the chuckle that rumbles in his throat. "Sorry, sorry. I'll stop."

"Good."

He takes a sip of his drink. Swallows. Whispers, "Maybe".

Mikasa gives him another look.

He smiles again, then dips his head back slightly and swigs another long sip of his drink.

Her eyes linger on his features then, lost in gentle reverie.

His smile... It had been one of those rare ones where the tiny dimple by the corner of his mouth flashed. She saw it even from underneath his stubble. It only happens when he _really_ smiles, and she'd first noticed he had it when they were just kids.

_And it' s still there._

Well, of course it is. Because just like his smell, and his hair, and his eyes, and every other part of him, it's such a part of Eren, so wholly _him_ , that not even time can erase it, and Mikasa practically has to remind herself of that obvious fact.

She closes her eyes and sighs, shoving another dark piece of chocolate pie into her mouth.

"What's wrong?" Eren asks her, and Mikasa's eyes snap open, not expecting the question.

"What?" she shrugs, chewing on her food. "Nothing's wrong, Eren."

"You look stiff."

"I'm just uncomfortable."

"Why?"

She swallows her food, then points the fork to a man blatantly gawking at her from two tables away. "That's why. Everyone keeps looking at me."

"Well, because you look beautiful."

"No," she sighs, and Eren swears he sees her cheeks turn a bit pink, but her voice is toneless when she continues, "it's because I look like an idiot."

"That's not true."

"It is."

"Why do you say that?"

She leans in closer and whispers, as if she were telling him a secret, "I'm wearing a dress in the middle of winter."

"But there's a reason for that, yes?"

"Yes."

"Then let them stare as much as they want," he dismisses, taking another swig of his drink.

Mikasa eyes him carefully, realizing how different his reaction is from her fiancé's. If she were ever to tell Jean that there were people staring at her, he would've glared and scowled at them, hovering over her protectively like a lion harboring his food.

Eren only shrugs though, sipping his drink and stealing little peeks at her from the corner of his eyes.

For a second, Mikasa thinks he'll ask for the reason why she even _is_ wearing a dress. But he never does.

In fact, now that she thinks about it, he hasn't even acknowledged the existence of her fiancé at all, or commented about the ring on her finger, which sort of surprises her. Eren's always been the overly curious type that never knows how to suppress his questions, but he's ignoring these things... as if mentioning them would steal them away from the scene.

She stares down at his hands which are clasped around the cup, eyeing the veins on the back of his hands again, getting lost in all their different curves and destinations.

 _Maybe._ .. Maybe it really would steal her away from that place. Because her fiancé is probably looking for her by now. Oh, God. _What if the whole party is looking for her?_ She'd left her phone with Jean, even though she'd brought her purse. He _had_ to be looking for her. She's been gone for some time. They all have to be wondering where—

Eren swallows his drink down bitterly, grimacing before coughing into his fist.

"You shouldn't drink so fast," she tells him calmly, despite the mild torrent of panic reeling in her gut. "You'll burn your throat."

Eren rolls his eyes at her. "Please," he says, but doesn't offer anything else. Classic Eren. You can't give that man a single piece of advice without him rolling his eyes dismissively and swatting your sentiments away.

Mikasa realizes she still hasn't touched her drink, so she brings the still-steaming cup to her lips and blows on it for a few seconds before taking a small sip, tasting it. The drink is warm and smooth and gentle on her tongue, like a whisper. She gazes at Eren, eyes peeking up over the rim of the cup.

He's staring at her again. But not just staring at her—he seems lost in thought.

Something in her stomach tightens at the way his eyes bore into her, so sincere, so merciless, and she swallows her drink down slowly, careful not to choke.

She can feel her face and neck starting to heat up, but Eren doesn't even flinch his eyes away from her, so Mikasa lets out a slightly breathless sigh, trying not to stutter as she says, "What is it?"

"Nothing," he answers flatly, not even blinking.

"Then..." she speaks under her breath, as if speaking too loudly would make him break his eyes away from her. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Eren's eyebrows raise up slowly, but his features remain carved from solid stone. Eventually though, he smiles, running a hand through his bistre hair and letting out a sigh.

"It's just—" He shakes his head. "It's just that you've changed so much. But then again, you haven't. I'm just trying to make sense of you, Mikasa, but it's as if someone took this girl I knew so well and wrapped her up in different clothing and painted her face with makeup and now suddenly she took on a whole new role. I can't even recognize you, but at the same time, I do. I totally do. I just..." Eren sighs again.

Mikasa's hands tighten around her cup. She clenches her jaw and stiffens, but can't will herself to stop him from belaboring further on. Part of her wants him to continue. Part of her _wants_ him to say all the things she's not brave enough to voice herself.

"I guess I just can't believe I found you tonight," he finishes, eyes all hazy when he looks away. "That's all." His lashes flutter as he blinks off into space. His eyes—for once—cannot bring themselves to look at her directly.

Mikasa slowly drops her gaze to her own hands, staring at the cream-colored liquid in the cup within her grasp. Her ring shimmers slightly in the light.

She closes her eyes, deciding not to look at it.

He said "found you", as if he'd been lost, looking for her, and now everything is… everything’s okay. Everything is better, because now she's at arm's length from him again.

Her brain tries not to accept the candid, wispy little thought that shouts and screams _and you feel the same way about him too, dummy! Tell him that. Tell him._

_TELL HIM!_

"I know," she whispers, her eyes still shut. "It's been... such a long time."

"It has," he agrees quietly, and the air grows denser between them, but not uncomfortable. "But I guess it's not our fault we've changed, right?"

He finally forces his eyes to meet her, and Mikasa smiles softly after opening her own.

"Yeah," she nods, but the drink is quickly stealing her lips thereafter, and that's the end of that conversation. Mikasa offers nothing more.

She never takes another bite out of that chocolate tart.

And Eren doesn't insist on teaching her the right way to pronounce it.

 

**—o—**

 

It's colder now than from before they'd gone into the cafe.

Eren hears Mikasa curse under her breath.

"Whoa, there, potty-mouth," he says as they stand outside. "I didn't know pretty girls in heels said 'fuck' so crudely."

"Fuck," she curses even louder. Her teeth begin to chatter. "Sorry. It's just so f-fucking _cold._ "

Eren smiles. Mikasa isn't one to curse. Ever. He feels a tinge of honor at having witnessed the rare occasion, briefly wondering if she ever does it in front of her husband-to-be.

"Do you know how to make your way back?" he asks her.

"Actually," she glances around, "I don't."

"Would you like me to help you?"

"Anything," she spits, practically jumping up and down for heat. "A-anything just p-p-please get me out of this d-d-damn c-cold."

"Alright," he says. "Where is it that you're coming from?"

"Sina Plaza."

Eren raises his eyebrows, impressed. "Really?"

"Y-yes."

"You mean, _the_ Sina Plaza hotel!?"

"Yes, Eren!" She nearly power-walks in circles. "P-please, just help m-m-me out. Tell me where to go and I will t-take a taxi there."

"No way," he says before peeling off his coat and draping it over her shoulders. "It's just around the corner. Come on. I'll take you."

Mikasa's frozen into place, eyes wide in astonishment as he pulls the coat all snug and tight around her, rubbing his hands over her arms and shoulders to offer her more heat.

She gazes at him, bewildered.

"It's warm, isn't it?" he smiles, his face merely inches away from hers.

Stunned, Mikasa cannot speak, so Eren pulls her by the sleeve of her own coat and prompts for her to start walking. She follows suit, utterly overtaken by the scent of him that radiates off his coat. Ginger. Nutmeg. Old Spice. _Him._

After a long moment, she finally finds her voice. "Wait," she blurts. "Wait, Eren. I can't take your coat. It's too cold out here! You'll freeze–"

"Please, Mikasa," he groans, rolling his eyes, but she doesn't catch him doing it. "I can stand the cold. You know that."

She opens her mouth to object further, but no words come out of her, so he turns his head to look at her over his shoulder. She's gaping at the back of his pale cotton sweater, making out the slope of his spine and the muscles on his back from beneath the fabric, chewing on her lip as if she were keeping herself from saying something.

Eren smiles, stopping momentarily to allow her to catch up. He stares at her as they amble along side by side, just like he'd done before on their way to the cafe.

Mikasa doesn't look at him.

"Hey," he whispers, tapping her arm with the back of his hand. "Your teeth stopped chattering. See? It's working."

Mikasa scoffs, her breath puffing out as smoke.

"Now," Eren digs his hands into his pockets, "since I can't show you around the city tonight, I'll just point out every important place we see along the way and tell you a little something about them, okay?"

Mikasa stares at him for a quiet second, then nods her head. "Okay."

"Right. So..." He rubs his palms together, blowing hotly into his hands to heat them up, steam puffing into them and slipping through the cracks between his fingers. He raises a hand and points to a park across the street. "You see that place over there?"

She nods, following the line of his finger.

"That's Rose Park. Mostly rich people ever go there. It's an odd name for a park, I know, but people started calling it that since it has so many damn rose bushes. Nobody really calls it by its real name which, honestly, I can't even remember right now."

She laughs quietly at that.

"And that," he points to a building beside them, decorated from top to bottom with Christmas lights, "is an apartment complex. I dated a girl who lived there once."

Mikasa crinkles her nose.

Eren shakes his head, eyes wide and occult as if the memory of her came prowling back to haunt him. "God, she was _crazy_."

"I thought you were only going to point out the important places," she deadpans.

Eren smiles brightly at her comment. "Oh, sorry. You're right."

She nods, hands clutching the thick fabric of his coat so that it doesn't fall off her shoulders.

"This area is mostly for rich folks. You see that restaurant right there? They sell shark livers. Shark. Livers. I didn't even know you could eat that!"

Mikasa laughs again, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head. "Apparently, you can."

"And the place beside them is an expensive vegan restaurant. I wonder what genius thought it'd be smart to set up a vegan joint right next to a place that sells shark intestines but, hey, I guess irony is gold, right?"

Mikasa's lips stretch into a smile that lingers as they walk. His hands fly out of his pockets occasionally for him to point, then scurry back inside for shelter from the cold.

"The diner I was gonna take you to is right down this street, but I'm afraid we won't be walking past it." He shrugs. "Oh, well. Another day, right? Oh! Hey, we turn here."

They turn at a street corner, walking down the sidewalk as Eren keeps on talking about a shop that opened just about a week ago, about a store that had been abandoned and everyone swears is being haunted by the deceased owner's ghosts, about this great doughnut place that was founded by the same guy that directed some episodes of _Friends._

She smiles. No matter what he says—even if she doesn't really hear him—Mikasa can't help but smile at his words. At his presence. At his being. At just…

Him.

There it is. That ardent, fervid spirit of his she's gone so long without. The Eren she always remembered, the one she knew so well: the roman candle that burned and burned and _burned_ , never extinguishing its flame. The green eyes, the color of life, the frenzy, the storm. He's that burst of wildfire again, and Mikasa realizes that she feels... Suddenly... Inexplicably… Happy?

She feels so... _happy_ to be by his side, again, like she belongs. She can feel her chest swell up inside her, threatening to burst from joy at any second. His nose turns pink and his lips look a little blue, but Eren keeps on talking, not even considering asking for his coat back.

She nearly closes her eyes then, wallowing in the sound of his words. The low timbre of his voice—the gentle gruffness of it—and all the little gasps he emits after rambling on a little too long and ending up breathless.

Hearing him, like this, is like hearing the world again for the very first time. Everything is new. Pure. She feels something shake within her, as if her soul had begun to shake, fighting to break free of her body and dance. She laughs at something he says, realizing that's the most she's laughed in ages. She feels like the missing piece of a grand puzzle has been discovered, and a foreign heat takes over her. A cozy, warm, fuzzy heat. She feels safe. She feels content.

She _feels_ it all.

She realizes then, just how much she's yearned for him... in the same way wasted lungs will yearn for air. Being with him enlightens something essential within her, something ancient, something old. Something that belongs to her primal being, from the very moment she was born.

Eren looks at her and smiles, laughing briefly at his own joke. It's as if someone, or something, flips a switch and turns on a light in her every time she hears him laugh. Dark, empty spaces flicker and glow; a bright light floods the black planes that have gone unnoticed and untouched for so long inside her. How long has she gone without seeing that smile? How long has she gone without hearing that voice?

And what had happened, exactly, that made it all suddenly go away?

Something pricks within her chest then, like a scathing little blow to her heart. It's bittersweet, reminiscent, and Mikasa nearly crumbles into tears. This feeling... she cannot explain. And perhaps she doesn't even want to.

 _If only._.. If only she could always be by his side. If only life could be as simple as this parceled moment.

But then Eren comes to a sudden stop, and Mikasa recognizes the place where they are standing. And just like that, it’s over.

"We're here," he says, sounding defeated.

Mikasa exhales deeply, her chest deflating along with her breath. She can't fight the hint of disappointment in her voice. "Already?"

"Yeah," he smiles weakly, burying his hands inside his pockets and shrugging up a single shoulder. "I'm afraid so."

She sighs, shedding his coat from her shoulders and extending her arm to him, offering it back. Eren thinks he can sense a mild reluctance in her motions, but it's probably all just in his head.

"Thank you, Eren," she says quietly. "For the coat. For tonight. For that delicious chocolate pie thingy."

He laughs, taking the coat from her hand. "No problem. I honestly didn't think you were allowed to eat chocolate anymore. What with your mandatory diets and stuff."

She flashes him a grin, watching as he pushes his arms through the coat one thick sleeve at a time. "Actually, I'm not. But nobody has to know that."

"I won't tell," he whispers, winks. "Promise."

She gives him a little scoff before laughing, sighing heavily afterwards as if to say, _Yep. This is it, then. Time for me to go._ But they stand quietly for a moment after that, lingering, not really knowing what to do. The silence grows a bit awkward after a while, but neither of them are willing to interrupt it yet. Not yet.

Eren glances back at the hotel behind him, his brows raising slightly at the sight. He'd walked past the place about a million times before, but he'd never gone inside. Only super rich people ever really went there. And he, certainly, was not that. Which only makes him wonder what the hell is _Mikasa_ doing in a place like this?

He glances down at the ring in her finger, then at the scarf around her neck. Suddenly, he feels light-headed and weak. Panic throbs fervently within him,, threatening to form into a calamitous storm. Because he understands. Eren understands what's happening perfectly:

He has to let Mikasa go. He has to let her go _again_.

"Well," one of them speaks, and he realizes it's Mikasa. "I guess this is it," she laments, averting her eyes to the ground.

Eren takes a deep breath, trying to calm his sudden anxiety. "Yeah."

She opens her mouth to speak but ends up saying nothing. She can't bring herself to pronounce a farewell. So she reaches out her hand to him instead, nodding her head to prompt him to take it. Eren glances down at her fingers, eyeing the perfectly manicured nails, blinking at them for a moment before taking her hand in his own.

_Second time she touches me: When she leaves me._

_Again._

Mikasa stares down at their hands, watching as they sway up and down in unison. She pretends not to notice the large scar on his palm, which reminds her that the permanent scratch below her right eye is currently invisible, covered beneath a thick layer of makeup.

She pretends not to feel the heat of his palm melt the surface of her icy skin.

She pretends not to feel his fingers wrapped around her hand, denting the flesh, gripping gently yet firmly at the same time.

She pretends not to notice any of these things. She pretends that none of them matter to her as much as they actually do.

"Take care, Mikasa," he tells her, and she smiles softly in response.

"You too, Eren," she breathes. "You too."

Out of nowhere, he gives her hand a tight squeeze, and the pressure causes a surge of electricity to jolt up her spine, her knees nearly buckling beneath her. She closes her eyes, pretending not to feel it. Pretending not to be overwhelmed with the sudden realization that _this is it_. They'll never see each other after this.

When she opens her eyes again, his hand still gripping hers, Mikasa understands the lingering silence between them. He's feeling her hand. Feeling her. Remembering. Memorizing. Savoring.

How utterly odd and inconvenient is that? Eren always manages to make even the most trivial and inept things intimate between them. Like a glance. Or a smile. Or a handshake.

Finally, she tears her hand away from his, remembering her fiancé, which she knows she loves so much and must be worried sick for her—if not furious as well. Without uttering another word, Mikasa makes her way past him and to the tall, fancy doors of the hotel, making him freeze when he catches that foreign scent on her again.

He stands in place as he wires his brain into a trained, careful numbness, deciding he can wallow in the painful aftermath of seeing her once he's in the safety of his own home.

He turns slowly on his feet, and brings himself to walk down the sidewalk, one foot reluctantly following the other, ripping himself away from her like a newborn snapping free of its umbilical cord.

And this is what the world must feel like, when autumn too soon turns to winter and leaves it barren in the cold.

 

**—o—**

 

Mikasa's hand is clasping the door handle, about to pull.

But she stops.

Her hand trembles, even as her grip goes tight. Her whole body's trembling—and she isn't cold. Not anymore. Eren's heat still shrouds her completely even though he isn't with her anymore. Even though he's gone. Even though his coat no longer lades her shoulders.

She stares at her hand. At the engagement ring on her finger.

Something bolts to life within her. A question. An answer.

Is this it?

She closes her eyes.

No.

_No, it's not._

 

**—o—**

 

"Wait!"

She's shouting before she can even think to stop herself, calling for Eren as soon as she breaks away from the door. And she knows this is wrong. She shouldn't do this. She should go home. To her fiancé. To her friends. To her own damn engagement party.

But Eren doesn't hear her, he just keeps on walking.

"Hey, wait!" she hollers, running, nearly tripping on her own feet. _Damn these fucking heels to hell._

"Eren!"

Suddenly, he stops, his shoulders raising in alarm before he whips around to see her, eyes stretched wide in surprise.

"I..." Mikasa stands before him, panting slightly as she tries to catch her breath. "Um... sorry, I just... uh, I was meaning to ask you..." her heart is beating so hard she practically feels it pounding out of her chest when she says, "so how could I ever reach you again?"

Eren blinks.

His eyebrows raise in mild astonishment before knitting together into a frown. He opens his mouth, unsure of what to say, unsure whether he even heard her right, yet he still manages to sputter, "W-well, I don't have a phone right now. But if you want, I could give you my address?"

"Perfect," she pants before she can control herself, searching frantically for a pen inside her purse. Her hands are shaking as she rummages through, and she hopes Eren doesn't notice. "Do you have anything to write on?"

He stares at her, frowning, as if he doesn't understand what she’s saying. Then suddenly, "Oh! Yeah." Promptly, he reaches into his pocket for his wallet, taking out a slightly crumpled piece of paper from inside one of the little folds. Honestly, what's that piece of paper even doing in there? How had it gotten into his wallet in the first place? Why had he kept it there for so long? It's a good thing he did though, and he silently thanks past Eren for being so smart.

She gives him her pen, and he positions it over the paper, using his folded wallet behind it for support. She watches him silently, hearing her own pulse drumming in her ears, her body surging with adrenaline as he scribbles his address down on the paper. She starts to shiver again, but not necessarily from the cold.

"There," he says, giving her the paper with his address on it.

Smiles. It doesn't even occur to her to give him her number because now she's suddenly afraid. She offers a small nod, turning around swiftly and throwing over her shoulder a breathless, "Goodbye, Eren. I'll see you soon!"

He stands frozen in place, bemused and slightly bewildered. He still holds her pen in his hand, and part of him wants to call out after her to return it. But his body is unresponsive under the shock and disbelief of what just occurred, and Mikasa is already bolting her way through the grand doors of the hotel like they weighed absolutely nothing.

"Yeah," he says under his breath, clutching the pen in his hand. He knows she can't hear him, but he still agrees with her aloud, breathing out a soft and hope-ridden, "Soon."

 

**—o—**

 

She hardly remembers walking through the front doors. She can't recall pressing down on the shiny golden button to call for the elevator. Or making her way inside, standing as straight and poised as always, punching on her floor number without as much as a sliver of emotion present on her face.

But then the elevator doors slide shut.

And she gasps, realizing she hadn't been breathing.

 _Oh, my God._ Her legs turn to jelly, and she melts with her back against the wall, panting heavily as if she'd just ran a marathon. Because Eren. _Eren_. She'd just seen Eren!

Oh.

My.

God!

She laughs. It's short, nervous and shaky, but she laughs. Her chest and legs tremble profusely. Her heart flutters like a little bird inside a cage. "Eren..." she whispers aloud, not even aware of herself. The elevator dings with every new floor, its gradual ascend to her destination enclosing her into the tight, suffocating spaces of reality. But her heart and mind are floating out of her body in blissful reverie. Mikasa is utterly beside herself.

She looks down at her trembling fists.

His fingers. She can still feel them wrapped around her, holding on to her hand.

Holding _her._

He's not a dream. Dreams can't hold your hand. Dreams don't give you a piece of paper with their address on it.

Oh! That reminds her.

She heaves, bringing the piece of paper to her face and boring her eyes through the scribbled words.

A smile. It dawns upon her lips.

The ink is black, staining over the paper. She can see the stain the pen made when he'd hovered the tip over it, a little hesitant and unsure.

A dot of obsidian.

_Black._

But then, his handwriting follows, and she marvels at every dip and curve of the words, admiring even the hasty manner in which some jumble up together before they end, and she's reading the entire thing all over again.

 _Ding!_ Another floor.

Mikasa folds the paper gently, carefully, as if she's afraid it might rip. She tucks it safely inside her bra, where nobody will find it. The paper feels sharp and prickly on her skin, but she smiles faintly, not daring to remove it.

She feels vibrant and live.

Whole.

Her eyes close and remember him. His eyes. His face. His dimply smile.

But then the elevator gives one last ding, and the doors slide apart to open right in front of her.

Mikasa opens her eyes, landing back into reality. Suffocating.

In an instant, she's toneless once again, all brightness and color draining out of her as she makes her way out, walking through the crowd of foreign people to stash away her coat and purse.

The party lights are bright and luminescent, but her eyes catch none of it anymore.

Because—even though there's music and people and colors all around her—someone has turned off that light.

 

**—o—**

 

Eren treks down the street, eyes glued to the ground. He looks down at his hand. He's still holding her pen. It's just a pen. Nothing special. But it's _hers._

He sighs, remembering her hand in his. It had felt so strange, so delicate. Fragile. Not like her at all. Mikasa's changed, he thinks. Mikasa's changed so much.

But there is a tremendous relief that swells up inside of him, one so brilliant and abstruse that not even he can understand. It’s as if, finally, he can breathe now. He can walk now. He can properly _be._

Suddenly, he catches his reflection in a window as he walks past a building. Damn. He almost doesn't even recognize himself. Eren is a stranger. _Still_ a stranger to himself.

It suddenly dawns upon him: _How did Mikasa even recognize me?_ His brain replays the events of the night over and over again. How she'd ran into him and nearly collapsed, how she'd felt so light in his arms, how she'd gazed up at him in alarm but then quickly recognized his face, bringing her mouth to pronounce his name. She'd recognized him even before he'd recognized _her_.

How? How?

And then... The way she'd said it— _"Eren"_ —over and over again, without realizing the damage that it caused him. It was like being renamed, like only she was capable of assigning his newfound identity. Because that was it, you see. That was the last thing she'd ever said to him before disappearing. His own name would haunt him for years for that same reason, because it carries the presence of her.

Then, it hits him: That's the last thing... but also the first. When she'd seen him again that night, his name was the first thing to pour out of her lips, to spill out through her smile. Eren. _Eren._

_“I love you, Eren.”_

He scoffs, laughing stupidly to himself and running a hand through his messy hair.

He can still see her eyes, wide and round, startled as he drapes his coat around her. He can still smell her scent, even if it wasn't hers entirely. He can still hear her talking and remember... how he'd felt so damn _alive_. For the first time in a very long time, something has breathed life into him. His eyes flicker down to his hand, staring at the pen for a moment. Then, a single white flake lands atop his outstretched palm, just above the ugly scar that mars it. He looks up, hardly believing the very sight before his eyes.

It's snowing.

He scoffs, shaking his head, then stops just by the edge of a sidewalk, waiting for permission to cross the street. There aren't many cars out in the night, but the sign at the end of the crossroad flashes a red hand for 'stop'.

He looks up at the traffic light, and even though there are no cars waiting by, he stands in place and waits as it flashes…

_Green._

He doesn't move. He doesn't want to. Mikasa's laughter still rings inside his ears. Her hand still fills his palm. Her red dress still glows, purely, right before his eyes.

The girl. He sees her. He sees her even though she's no longer there.

Eren hears the Christmas music all around him, and it's soft. Beautiful. Something cracks open within him, something bursts to life anew. He appreciates the world around him as if he were experiencing it for the very first time, the almost-six-years he's spent becoming familiar with the city suddenly disintegrate to nothing, and he's re-discovering the world through the lenses of new eyes.

He tucks her pen into his pocket, watching as small flakes of snow float down from the sky. The wind is gentle, and it carries a whisper…

Her voice, eliciting his name.

It only takes a few more minutes, but he doesn't mind the pointless wait. Because, eventually, the red hand disappears and the pedestrian sign lights up in its place to indicate:

_Go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the story has begun. There is so much to unravel, and I'm pretty damn excited 'cause we're just getting started. Sorry this chapter is so long, once again. As always, thank you for reading. Please make sure to leave a review/[tumblr](http://natiwati.tumblr.com/) me and let me know what you think. It truly means a lot :) 
> 
> PS: Eren wasn't flirting with the barista girl. He was telling her he was trying to steal a girl away from her fiance. But Mikasa doesn't have to know that.


	3. Hello, Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so tempted to title this chapter 'Hickeys and Ass-Throbbing Wedgies' but then I was like, naaahhh. Coming next chapter, notice the distinct difference between how Eren sees Mikasa, and how Mikasa sees herself. It plays a key role in this story. Also, Mikasa hardly ever curses here but I imagine she's secretly a potty mouth in her head (but that may just be a guilty headcanon of mine *shrug*)
> 
> Also, don't forget to leave a review please. They fill my heart with glee and really, really help push the story forward. 
> 
> PS: Eren's apartment number is the date of Mikasa's birthday (February 10th)

Everything feels as if lost in a haze, lately, stolen by a dense, lifeless blur. The days roll by with a monotonous groan, lugging the heavy burden of time as if each second weighed too much for the sun to carry. It rises, shines, dwindles and fades only to make room for a moon as unanimated as its partner. Nights and days are all the same. Long. Stale. Vacant.

Mikasa sighs in her sleep, eyes buried under lids locked shut by the weight of slumber. They remain this way even as her fiancé stirs awake beside her. Even as he rises from their bed to traipse over to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face, brush his teeth, take a brisk shower. They miss the way he coats his fingers in gel and rakes them through his hair, how the towel hangs low around his hips and falls to his feet as he clothes himself. He buttons up his shirt, fixes a plaid tie around his neck, buckles his belt and ties his shoelaces, all tasks Mikasa would normally help him with—but not today. She’s far too tired. Too worn. Stretched thin by the events of the previous nights.

A tender kiss on her chin awakens her. It smells of hair gel and aftershave. The wet stamp it leaves glimmering on her skin screams of his absence, for she hears him breeze through their apartment too soon for her to call after him, the heels of his shoes clacking all the way to the front door that shuts a tad too loudly, a bang that frightens all remnants of sleep away. In his haste, Jean must’ve forgotten she was sleeping.

With a sigh, Mikasa’s eyes come alive. She blinks up at the ceiling above her, a hand rustling the white bedsheets as it slides up to touch the spot beside her where her fiancé had been only moments before, the sheets still warm where he’d slept. The bed creaks beneath her as she rolls onto her side her hand lingering on the unoccupied space for a while, dwelling in his absence, her eyes gazing sleepily across the room to stare out at the city through a gap between the cream-colored curtains. The world is white outside. Snow rains down from the sky like tiny balls of foam spilling down from the heavens.

She closes her eyes, breathing out through her nostrils, hating herself for expecting this day to be any different from the rest. Because, of course, Jean has to go to work.

On a Sunday.

_ Baby, you know I have to go no matter what, _ he always tells her when she protests.  _ But we’ll go out and get something to eat when I get back, okay? How does that sound? _

Marvelous. It’s not like she ever had it in her to protest any further after that.

She stares at the falling snow until her vision blurs and goes unfocused. Morning light spills in through the pale curtains, reigning over their spacious bedroom with the sovereignty of a new day. Her eyes, still heavy, trail idly upwards to peer at the boring spectacle that is their ceiling.

Sundays. Mikasa quite loathes Sundays, really. There’s nothing ever to do. And it doesn’t help that their apartment is so damn huge. The vastness of it taunts her, suggesting her fiancé’s absence, the endless possibilities that lie ahead. With him not here, the day is all hers. Yet she feels lost as to what to do to fill in the spaces she must live in without him. What is she, if not his soon-to-be-wife? What is she, if not a successful businessman’s fianceé?

Suddenly, a chirpy little voice croons inside her head, bouncing off the walls of her cranium like an irritating bouncy ball.  _ “Jeaaaaaaaaaaaan-bo,” _ it croons. She realizes—with an involuntary cringe—that the voice belongs to her mother-in-law. It disrupts even the faintest slither of silence with its shrilling, nails-dragging-down-a-chalkboard whine:  _ “Jeeeaaaan-bo, your fiancée—she's so beautiful! It's such a shame she doesn't talk or smile more. Pretty girls like her should know to smile more often!” _

Mikasa frowns at the memory. Those were her exact words too.

_ “Mom,”  _ her fiancé had protested, giving his intoxicated mother a gentle tug to guide her like of, erm, staggering.  _ “Please, Mom, she does smile. Like, all the time.” _

_ “Well, I don’t ever see her doing it! You should help her break out of her shell, Jean.”  _

_ “‘Kay, Mom. Whatever you say.” _

_ “I’m serious! She needs to talk more—or at least smile a little! It frustrates me, quite frankly. It’s such a pity! Nobody likes a girl so serious.” _

Ugh.

Overhearing Jean’s mother spit blatant criticisms about her was such a regular, day-to-day occasion that Mikasa wondered why she ever felt the least bit affected by them. She should be used to her banters by now. But they still got to her, anyway. They always did, somehow. 

The conversation had occurred just two weeks prior, whilst she waited patiently outside Sina Plaza Hotel on the night of her engagement party for Jean to finish stuffing his mom inside a taxicab, his gentle pushes and benign shove soon resorting to defeated sighs of exasperation as his clearly-had-a-little-too-much-to-drink mother rebuffed his attempts to get her inside.

Her words were only alcohol induced, so she didn’t really mean them—at least, that’s what Jean had tried convincing Mikasa later on that night when she very casually (not that casually) alluded (more like proclaimed) to the fact that his mother had been squawking not-so-pleasant remarks about her all night long without the slightest hint of modesty.

_ “She was just drunk, babe. Ignore her. I’m sure she didn’t mean a word of it at all.” _

Of course she didn’t. She probably didn’t mean the plethora of comments she’d spat under her breath since the day they’d first met either, calling her this name and that, disgracing her with subtle side glances and the occasional blatant roll of her eyes. Anti-social. Humorless. Odd, quiet little girl. _ “How could my son ever be in love with a woman like that?”  _ And the best part always came right after, when she would turn and, unremittingly, flash Mikasa a smile so grand and genuine that she found herself doubting her own eyes. She was a damn illusionist, that woman. One second, a smile bearing all the sincerity in the world would flash on her botoxed face before, in the flicker of a second, it would vanish before her very eyes, replaced by a scowl, a scornful twist of her plump lips that left Mikasa wondering if she’d merely imagined it.

But still, Mikasa wasn’t stupid. She knew very well that nobody in his family, or even social group for that matter, particularly doted on her. Because, well… 

Nobody likes a girl so serious.

Little do they know, Mikasa had thought then that she’d actually smiled and laughed a whole damn lot that night. Countless of times, actually. Just not with them.

So she’d focused all her attention on the snowflakes that had begun to dance around her, enveloping her, protecting her from her surroundings. A hand had reached up to clutch the scarf around her neck absently, the way it sometimes did when she was lost in thought. And suddenly Jean’s mother didn’t bother her anymore, for the events of the night replayed and replayed in her mind like the twirls of a fervent dancer, swirling and whirling and beginning again.

She squints her eyes at the ceiling, gauging how much time has passed since then. Has it really been two whole weeks now? Really? Two? 

She sighs, her body sinking into the mattress. Rolling onto her back, she thinks of how time sure does go by fast.

So, two whole weeks, huh? That’s how long it’s been since she last saw Eren, then… 

Eren.

Instantly, Mikasa slaps a hand across her mouth, covering the smile that nearly breaks her stoic expression like a dangerous secret about to be exposed—as if there’s anyone even there to see her. She squeezes her eyes shut, a long squeal muffled by her palm, legs thrashing about and body squirming on the bed like a hyperactive child.

Jesus. She’s going nuts.

So much has changed since she last saw him, even though it’s only been two weeks. She’s started noticing some new things since then, thing’s that would’ve normally escaped her. Like how Jean’s body wash has a smell very similar to the redolent Old Spice that had tinged Eren’s coat. She’d even noticed it that same night too! They were in the shower together after making it home and she went to rub the blue liquid onto his back, nearly slapping herself across the face when what sprang into her mind was an image of the green-eyed, long-haired, stubbly-faced tannish boy of her past instead of the man standing naked right in front of her. Ugh. Talk about distress. 

She’s also started noticing the smell of chocolate more now too, as silly as that sounds, ever since her taste buds rediscovered her long-lost addiction after going “clean” for so long. Everywhere she goes, if there’s chocolate anywhere within a ten-foot radius, she can detect it. And it always makes her think of Eren. Always. God.

It’s all his fault.

Ever since she last saw him, her senses have been more alert, occasionally discovering new things she’s hardly cared enough to notice countless times before. And not only has she come to rediscover her surroundings, she’s learned new things about herself too.

Like how she’s actually a pretty bad fucking liar.

_ “What took you so long? I was starting to get worried,”  _ Jean had said, or rather, slurred to her that night when she’d made it back to him, a whiff of alcohol tingeing his breath.

_ “A friend,”  _ she’d gushed without even thinking.  _ “I ran into someone.” _

And by the _ “Oh?”  _ that he had given her and the clumsy way in which his eyebrows raised, she knew he wanted further explanation.

_ “A friend of yours,” _ she’d lied, and never had a few set of words ever made her feel so dirty as this:  _ “We talked about the wedding. They were so kind. I can’t remember their name, though. You know how bad I am with names.” _

That was the first time Mikasa ever lied to him.

The second time came right after, when he’d opened his mouth to ask,  _ “Which friend?”  _ and she’d lunged forward and stolen a kiss from him in such a spontaneous and rare public display of affection that she had him smiling groggily against her lips for some time. He must’ve forgotten what they were talking about after that, because he didn’t bother questioning her further.

But then he’s sighed happily, catching her face in his hands, a shadow of confusion crossing his features.  _ “Chocolate. Why do you taste like chocolate?” _

And that’s when Mikasa had sputtered her second lie:  _ “Chapstick.” _

If she thought about it long enough, she kind of felt bad for lying to him. But it’s not like she could’ve just said the truth, right? It’s not that simple. She couldn’t just confess that she’d escaped their own damned engagement party and left him to roam alone in a huge city, running into an ex-lover in the process and spending time with him at a french cafe where she broke a sacred rule and actually fed herself chocolate—oh, God. No. No. Just the idea of it sounds damn horrific. Jean would not have been too pleased to hear that. So, naturally, lying was her best and only option.

_ Yeah, yeah, yeah,  _ a different voice chirps within her, and she realizes it’s actually her own this time.  _ You haven’t even married the poor guy yet and already you are lying to him. _

“Oh, shut up,” she says aloud, rolling over to the middle of the gigantic, king-sized bed.

Great. Now she’s talking to herself.

She hears a faint purring coming from the kitchen. It’s their cat, Jiji. Not only did she name him that because his fur is black as charcoal and his face is usually settled in a rather caustic expression that reminds her of Kiki’s pet cat in the movie  _ Kiki’s Delivery Service,  _ but also because she thinks that Mr. Pringles is a pretty stupid name to give a cat. Just… no. You do not name a cat Mr. Pringles, no matter how many tubes of Pringles need to be unscrewed from around his head. One of these days, Jiji’s gonna get his head stuck in one of those darned tubes and when they’re forced to take him to the vet, the doctors are going to ask them for their cat’s name and if so much as a single breath is inhaled and the name “Mr. Pringles” starts to form around Jean’s lips, Mikasa’s going to karate chop him on the side of the neck and knock him down unconscious. 

He’s a pretty dumb cat, that Jiji. But she likes him. He’s always there to keep her company, even if her hardly ever glances her way. She can’t be bothered to move just yet though, so she pores over the ceiling, thinking that two more purrs, two more purrs and then she’ll feed him.

How long has she gone without moving? She’s not sure. Her arms and legs spread out at her sides so that she’s splayed open on the center of the bed like a child about to make a snow angel. A few more drowsy blinks later, and the vestiges of slumber finally desert her. She’s wide awake now, staring at the ceiling with renewed intent.

Maybe, just maybe, if she stays very, very still, motivation will come to her.

But then Jiji meows, and Mikasa sighs, ignoring him. One more. One more meow and then she’ll move.

Now that she thinks about it, it turns out that her bra wasn’t actually a good place to hide Eren’s address. What a splendid thing to notice right before your horny fiance decides he wants to take you to bed, right?

You see, she’d thought it a pretty clever hiding spot back then, when she’d had her mild meltdown at the elevator. But then came saying goodbye to all the guests, and cleaning up after the party, and stuffing Jean’s drunken mother into a taxi cab. Inevitably, sooner or later, would come the time to go back home. What she hadn’t anticipated was that perhaps her fiance—whom she’s been with for some time now and knows so damnably, perfectly well—might want to… oh, you know. Have sex?

Yeah. “Fuck,” pretty much sums up Mikasa’s thoughts back then.

In her vague and somewhat limited experience, she’s come to understand that there are five types of drunks in this world: the happy drunks, the sad drunks, the angry drunks, the philosophical drunks, and the horny drunks.

Her fiance is the horny kind of drunk.

That night, she hadn’t expected it. She’d assumed he’d be too tired, what with his blabbering state and all, maybe he might’ve just wanted to go home and rest… sleep off a potential hangover? But no. Oh, no. He had other plans in mind, apparently.

His hands had startled her, gripping her waist so tightly and out of the blue that she only had a second to catch her breath before, looking back at his reflection in the mirror in front of her, she told him that he’d frightened her. He responded by whispering apologies into her hair, swaying slightly on his feet. From the mirror, she could see that his eyes were closed above her head, the rest of his face buried into her hair as he inhaled her. Despite herself, Mikasa smiled.

She’d continued to relieve her ears of her diamond earrings, carefully removing all her jewelry before placing it inside the humble little jewelry box her friend Aemin made her as a Christmas present many years ago, when she heard his sleepy, imperceptible voice murmuring behind her,  _ “‘Kasa.” _

She’d laughed, asked him what he wanted.

Then he’d gone on to tell her how beautiful she looked, how lucky he felt to have her, how happy he was that in a few short months she would finally be his and blah blah blah blah and so forth—all the while his hands roved all over her dress, working up and down her sides, bunching the skirt in his hands like he’d wanted it to vanish. He pressed a kiss to the exposed skin of her neck, then to the first small bump of bone peeking out from her spine just above the neckline. She’s shuddered a little too, and he’s just kept murmuring nonsense she couldn’t understand into her skin, which tickled.

She’d turned around to face him, giggling, ready to retaliate, when suddenly he’d plunged forth and caught her mouth in his without warning. It’s pretty obvious what went on after that, so just use your imagination.

Eventually, though, his hands grew bored of framing her ass and waist, running out of feasible ways to get the dress off her. His clouded, drunken mind cleared with the light on an idea, apparently, and soon his clumsy fingers were fumbling for the zipper behind her back. A triumphant little sound rumbled in his throat when he found it, and then she felt him tugging at it a few times before gliding it down to unzip her.

Hands to his chest, Mikasa had implored him to continue, briefly wondering how long they’d gone without burning quite as hot as this. The cool air of their room has begun to nip at the newly exposed skin of her back, Jean’s one hand struggling to unhook her bra clasp, the other roaming over her chest in a quest to anchor itself on one of her breasts when suddenly—

Her eyes shot wide open.

She gasped.

Remembered.

_ Eren’s address is on my friggin’ boob! _

She’d pushed Jean away, told him to meet her in the shower, and sprang to hide the small piece of paper in a safe area as if it would dissipate into smoke if she wasn’t quick enough. That entire night—since the moment she’d run into Eren—had turned itself violently askew, snapping off the hinges and hanging upside down. Ever since then, ever since him, nothing's been quite the same. There's a stain now, a mark, a subtle tinge of him lingering around everywhere, demanding to be seen, to be felt.

And she hasn't seen him in two whole weeks. By her choice, might we add.

Her eyes fall to the clock by the bed. It's 7:45 am now. Slowly, she trails her gaze over to the dresser where the crumpled piece of paper bearing Eren's address still resides, hidden safely under a bunch of useless notebooks she uses to fill the top drawer she doesn't own enough clothing to fill herself.

It lies untouched. Still untouched.

_ What if — _

Jiji gives his third meow before even a fragment of a thought can fully develop. Mikasa finally capitulates with a tired groan/sigh.

"Hold up, Jiji," she moans, working her limbs free of the demonic linen-sheets mess she's worked herself into. She hauls her body up to sit on the edge of the bed, letting out the most disgruntled, garbled sound of pleasure as she stretches her arms above her head and all sorts of bones click and pop up and down her back. 

Jiji gives another meow. Louder, more demanding.

"God," she breathes, clomping over to the kitchen. Tragically enough, half her underwear seems to have wedged itself between her butt cheeks, baring half of a cheek and giving her the most unpleasant of wedgies—which she pulls, like the refined lady that she is, with an exasperated sigh; the elastic band snapping back to her skin with a sharp snap. The noise must've startled little Jiji, for he spurs and dashes across the kitchen in alarm. He's a very nervous cat, which Mikasa always finds a bit amusing.

He springs across the kitchen floor to where she's walking: smoothing down her half-rolled-up tank top, rubbing her eyes with her fists, yawning as if she hasn't slept in thirty years (and probably looking like it too). She almost trips over the poor creature when he slithers in between her feet, gliding his soft fur over her skin almost sensually. "Jiji, please," she hisses. "Stop it."

The cat just fucking purrs.

She plucks out a can of cat food from inside one of the kitchen cabinets, pulling back the tab to peel the thin metal lid open before scraping out the smelly gunk onto a small plate with a spoon. Jiji's slithering between her feet again, purring in utter delight. Little asshole.

"Here," she says, setting down the plate on the floor before him. Immediately, Jiji starts nibbling off his food, which actually surprises her. That's a first. He must've been famished. Did Jean forget to feed him last night?

She crouches down, crossing her arms over her knees, deciding that she'll watch him. Truly, it's not like she has anything better to do.

After a long while of staring mindlessly at Jiji, Mikasa spaces out, her gaze trailing over to the view past the sliding doors leading to the spacious balcony. Snow’s still falling, which she admires quietly, wondering if Eren has a place like this. What's the view like from where he's living? Does the city seem to him the same way it seems to her?

Suddenly, her phone rings. On cue, she's scrambling to her feet and sprinting across the apartment to the bedroom with such vehement speed that Jiji bolts away from his food in fright.

She hurls herself onto the bed, clambering for her cell phone and snatching it into her hands. Without even bothering to check the caller ID, she answers, slightly out of breath. "Hello? He... Hello?"

Nobody responds.

She pants, bringing the phone to her face to peer down at it. The message on the screen reads:

**Missed Call:**

**Hubby**

She's rushing to to call him back, her heart practically beating out of her chest as she's nearly doing it—but then, suddenly, a text message chimes in.

It's from him.

**Hi baby. Sorry if I woke you up. Look I'm gonna be back late tonight so don't bother waiting for me. There's leftovers in the fridge from yesterday. Order take out if you want. I left the credit card on the kitchen counter jic so knock urself out. Call u when my meeting's over k?**

She narrows her eyes, a frown digging creases into the skin between her eyebrows. She's just about to re-read the entire message when her phone does that weird bloop noise it always makes when a new text bubble pops into the screen. She runs her eyes over the message.

**See u tonight**

A third text bloops in right after that.

**Love you**

Mikasa really hates Sundays.

 

**—o—**

 

Two hours later, and she's meticulously unfolding and refolding her clothes.

She's already scrubbed every inch of the bathroom tiles, washed the kitchen counters, rearranged the contents of the fridge and vacuumed just about every damn fiber off the carpets and still she cannot seem to calm the hissing torrent of her turbulent thoughts. They rage inside her, her cool and calm exposure an utter contradiction to the storm that boils within.

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid,  _ **_stupid_ ** , she calls herself, each new “stupid” stronger than the last.  _ Why do you always expect more than what you can have? Why do you always set yourself up for disappointment? _

Why? Why, why, _ whywhywhywhy? _

Jiji's lounging on the bed atop her pillow, staring at her with his condescending, beady eyes. He meows.

"Not now, Jiji," she grumbles, wiping off the sweat beading on her forehead with a quick sweep of her hand.  _ I just can't believe him! _ And really, truly, she can't.

After he'd promised to do something tonight—anything. It doesn't even have to be anything extravagant, just sitting together in the same room staring at each other would've been fine for crying out loud. But just... nothing! He's done this to her so many times before, she doesn't even know how she's remotely hurt by it.

But it's just frustrating. It's just really damn frustrating. Why does he always have to be at work?

Mikasa shakes her head. She's probably making far too big a deal out of this. Jean would even say so too. She needs to calm down. Just calm down, Mikasa. Breathe.

She retrieves a short tower of folded clothes to stash it back inside the drawers when, her mind still jumbled up in chaos, she ends up opening the wrong drawer instead. She finds herself stalling, genuinely surprised by the contents held within, peering down at them with hollow eyes.

It's all just a bunch of old notebooks. Most of them not even hers, but actually Armin's.

And hidden beneath one of them, is Eren's little note.

Her hand, still clenched around the knob to pull the drawer open, tightens. She feels a tingle slither down her spine—adrenaline.

Quickly, her eyes flicker upwards to meet her own reflection in the mirror. Her face, still fresh and untouched by makeup, bears the purest resemblance of her. It nearly appalls her how much she reminds herself of her own mother. Save for, well, the scar below her eye, she's a painful spitting image of her.

She closes her eyes. No. Don't think about her. Don't think about anything at all.

After a few deep breaths, Mikasa opens her eyes again, gazing at her own reflection. And she hardly recognizes herself. This girl, still in just panties and a tank top, with a new chip on her manicured nails and her hair still in utter disarray...  _ Is this really me? _

She squints, scowling, and brings a hand to her cheek. The tips of her fingers feel cold against the surface of her clammy skin. The once-flawless paint of her manicure—which she's ruined with her recent bout of cleaning—has chipped off at the edges, the natural pigment of her nails rebelling past the artificial confinement. She swears she can see dark circles ring around her eyes, her skin pale and blotchy, her fingers bony and inexplicably thin. And it's not just her fingers that look like that, the rest of her looks just as alarmingly knobby to her as well. The white tank top she still hasn't changed out of hugs her torso rather loosely, and—Christ, she looks like a limp noodle. It's so strange. So painfully unlike her. Her hip bones poke out from underneath her skin, her collarbones and shoulders so sharp and punctuated that she catches herself gaping at them for a while in disbelief. Her unruly hair falls past her shoulders, ending just below the peaks of her breasts, a length that Jean very much appreciates. And how could he… how could  _ anyone  _ find her beautiful? When was it, exactly, that she became… this?

Finally, she meets her own gaze in the mirror.

And that is when she's taken aback the most.

Her eyes, as dark and empty as voids, taunt her. She can't fathom why Jean would ever praise their beauty the way he always does. Why? Why does he? She's so... She's just so...

Empty.

Fretting over a man, cleaning up an apartment by all herself for no particular reason, not a single text from friends or loved ones buzzing her phone—nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Is this really her life?

Sadness fills the voids in her eyes, poison seeping into vials far too small to contain it. A thought flows forth from her mind, unbidden, bleeding out like sap oozing from a tree. It's simple. The truth is very, very simple.

_ I’m lonely. _

Mikasa’s lonely.

She feels something split open in her chest, and the feeling is so alarmingly familiar that she sucks in a deep breath, forcing all her intent and energy into calming herself. Before the emotions can begin to overflow, before tears can even start to burn and bead over her eyes, Mikasa takes a deep breath—however shaky it may be—and stops herself.

No. She will not cry. Not now, not ever. She knows better than to let her emotions get the best of her. They seldom ever have.

And then, like a dying flame, light seems to escape the very contours of her face, all traces of emotion vanishing from her features right before her eyes. She doesn't even see herself anymore. She doesn't even see her mother. She sees nothing, feels nothing, and it's an emptiness she's grown very accustomed to. An emptiness that’s comfortable to live in. It lingers, stays. Persistent. Persistent. It never goes away.

Without sparing another glance at the opened drawer, she snaps it shut with all the force of a hurricane, the loud pang of wood banging against the frame resonating through the apartment like a thunderclap splitting through the clouds.

 

**—o—**

 

The entire apartment is clean now. There's not a single speck of dust in sight.

Mikasa stands with her hands perched on her hips amid the center of the living room, and, with another wedgie underway, she peruses her surroundings. "What do you think, Jiji?" she asks, turning around to look at him.

He's nowhere to be found.

She sighs. "You too, huh?"

 

**—o—**

 

That's it. She can't take it any more.

She's doing it.

After a long, hot shower and some breakfast, Mikasa decides it's best to get herself out of the apartment. God knows dangerous things happen when she's left alone inside it for too long (i.e. dangerously spotless floors that make your socks slip when you walk over them). Before leaving, she makes sure to retrieve three vital things:

One, her purse (for obvious reasons).

Two, the credit card Jean left on the counter (for revenge).

And—she'll have a hard time explaining this to herself later but—three, Eren's address. Because it can't hurt… 

Right?

 

**—o—**

 

The city is clothed in white with snow that rains down in thick flakes that linger for a moment before melting into Mikasa’s clothes. Her breath fogs with every exhale, hands trembling slightly at her sides. Whether they shake from the cold or from nerves, she does not know. She balls the tightly into fists, taking in a steady, icy gulp of air to calm herself before finally looking up. A tall, wooden door stands grandly before her, only an arm's-length away. She shudders.

The number on the door reads 210, embellished in golden text.

Her eyes pull down to stare at the note in her hand. Snowflakes fall around the paper, melting into her glove. She briefly wonders if now is really the best time to come pay Eren a visit. It's snowing, there's not many people out to begin with, it's four days away from Christmas and the snow has hushed the bustling city life into a calm, eerie whisper. Most folks have opted to stay inside, yet here she is. Brave? Stupid? Both. 

It takes a second attempt at reading the address for her brain to processes the entirety of the words.

_ 210 Maria St. apt 210c _

She sighs. This is it.

Her eyes land on the row of buzzers on the thick casing of the door. Three small rectangles bearing each of the inhabitants' last names are written down by hand, one on top of the other. She scans each of the names carefully.

_ Dreyse _

_ Blouse  _

And finally—her breath catches slightly when she sees it—comes the name written in a handwriting identical to the one on the paper she holds in her grasp:  _ Jaeger. _

Mikasa balks. Her hand hangs suspended in the air where she stopped herself mid-way of reaching out to press the button by his name. Should she even be doing this? Is now even the right time? Her mind is teeming with all sorts of worrisome questions. What if he's not home? What if he doesn't even want to see me? What if—

Okay, stop it, Mikasa. Stop it. Just press the damn button. What better do you have to do, anyway? Go home? Wallow in your misery while Jean stays all day at work? Go talk to Jiji? Who is, by the way, your only fucking friend.

No.

Press the button.

Her hand moves on its own. Mikasa's not even sure of what's possessing her, but it's as if someone else is moving her body for her. She bites her lip, the tip of her finger pressing against the surface of the tiny button until—

_ Brrraaaaaap! _

Jesus Lord, that thing is loud. Mikasa nearly jumps ten feet into the air from the startle. A few seconds go by in silence after that and she fiddles with some loose strands of her hair, anticipating the sound of Eren's voice breaking out from the speaker, her heart pounding in her throat, the latch of the door clicking as he turns the knob to open it, his green eyes growing wide at the sight of her.

But then a whole minute goes by.

And nothing happens.

Mikasa smooths a lock of hair behind her ear, licking her slightly chapped lips and shivering from the cold. If Eren doesn't answer soon, she's going to turn into a frigging snowman out here. She bites her lip again, pushing down on the buzzer and holding it for a moment longer, just in case.

_ BRRRRAAAAAAAAP! _

Jesus. Why not alarm the whole damn city that she's here?

Suddenly, the latch clicks and the door pries open just a sliver. Mikasa straightens, her body perking up and the heels of her boots clicking together in excitement. But then…

Nothing… happens?

She frowns, confused. "Hello?" she calls out, but the door is completely still, merely hanging ajar. Huh. That's not very inviting. She dips her head to peek inside through the sliver of space between the jamb and the door.

There's no one there.

Mikasa swallows. What the heck? Is the buzzer broken? Is there some new, high-tech device that allows people to open doors without being there to answer them themselves that she's not aware of?

She looks around at all of her surroundings. People stroll about the city without paying her any mind, and snow has begun to accumulate at the tips of her expensive leather boots. She takes a deep breath, and before she can even process what she is doing, her hand is pushing hard against the dark wood of the door. The hinges creak slightly as she pushes it open, peeking her head inside ever-so-carefully and voicing aloud another soft and tentative, "Hello?"

There's not a single soul in sight. As soon as she enters the front door, she's faced with a narrow hallway and a staircase leading up to the second floor. On the one side, a wall stretches far back to a white door with the number  **210A** on it. That must be the first apartment. She looks down at the note in her hand.  **210c.** Eren is  **210C** .

Slowly, Mikasa makes her way up the stairs, the noise her heeled footsteps emit bouncing off the white cement walls. She wishes she could hush her own feet, dissolve any sound she makes into the air, for she feels like an intruder.

This doesn't stop her though. Once she climbs the flight of stairs, she is met with a wider, more spacious hallway. Two doors lie adjacent to one another on opposite sides of the walls. A wide, tall window serves as the only sustenance of light between them, save for the flickering light bulb that hangs naked from the ceiling above. She runs her gaze over the wall closest to her on her left. That apartment door is  **210B** .

Mikasa swallows. This means—this can only mean…

**210C** . Eren's apartment. Right there. Beside her. Just a few steps away.

As she makes her way towards his door, Mikasa momentarily debates if she should be here. It's not like anyone even answered the door. She sort of just… went in. She's not allowed much train of thought though, for her fist is already clenched, her breath held tight inside her lungs, and she raps, twice, on the fading wood of Eren's apartment door.

She purses her lips tightly, holding her purse in front of her legs with clenched, trembling fists. It's just the cold, she tells herself. She's not really nervous. Psssh. Not at all.

But then, the most daunting thing occurs. History repeats itself.

Nothing. Happens.

Nothing at all!

Mikasa sighs, knocking on the door twice more, only louder this time. If he doesn't answer, then he's not home. That's okay. That's perfect, really. That way she’ll just get to go home, resume her day as if nothing ever happened. There's no saying she didn't try, at least.

But her heart sinks at the thought. She's almost surprised by herself. Really? Was she really looking forward to seeing him that much?

Enough time standing in silence passes that Mikasa's genuinely convinced there's no one home. She nods solemnly to herself, almost as if to say see? I told you so. The tiny flutters of nerves inside her gut die out, and she is left with the smoldering ashes of flames that burned fiercely only some short seconds ago. She starts, and is just about to turn on her heels when suddenly—

The door flies open.

Mikasa's heart practically stops.

Right there, in front of her, stands, not Eren Jaeger, but a girl—no. Scratch that. A woman. With shaggy, light-brown hair that Mikasa imagines must be just about chin-length if it weren't all swept carelessly to the side and actually hung down in it's natural state. She's got an austere, amber gaze that pierces through Mikasa with sharp daggers of downright cavalier judgment, an askew smile decorating the smooth curvature of her lips with what suggests uncouth apathy or... is that— _ is she mocking me? _

To make matters worse, Mikasa's eyes finally flutter south.

She audibly gulps at the woman's presently state.

She's naked! Well, save for a half-buttoned-up over-sized men's shirt and a whole bunch of hickeys around her neck, there seem to be no other additions lading the woman's smooth, rosy skin. And the hickeys. Good God, they are everywhere. Mikasa practically feels herself turn a bright shade of pink at the sight of them.

She parts her lips to speak, but Mrs. I-Just-Got-Laid-Last-Night beats her to it.

"Who are you?" comes her high-pitched, caustic tone, and it's honestly dreadful. Mikasa tries not to choke on her own spit.

"O-oh, I'm... Ah, I just— I'm sorry. I must have the wrong place? I thought I had it correctly but—"

"What's your name?"

Mikasa blinks, taken aback by her question. "Um..."

"What? You don't know your own name?"

Jesus Christ. She feels her temple throb with annoyance, practically gritting out between her teeth, "Please excuse me. I must have the wrong address. I'm sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day."

The woman just shrugs nonchalantly and mutters, "Whatever" as Mikasa tears her eyes from the lewd hickeys splayed across her skin, turning to walk away when—

"Hitch."

She stops.

"Who is it?"

Oh. My. God.

It's Eren!

Mikasa freezes stiff. Her stomach churns at the sound of his voice, the smoldering ashes of nerves that had died out just seconds ago bursting back to life, burning her. Quickly, she whips around to face the door again and is immediately met with a set of wide, startling teal-green eyes.

It's him.

"Oh, my God," he breathes. 

Mikasa can only imagine her own expression. She hopes her cheeks aren't flaring bright, cherry red, because her entire face feels like it's suddenly on fire. She opens her mouth to speak, barely sputtering out a squeaky and slightly breathless, "Hi, Eren."

He just blinks at her, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. The startled expression leaves him soon though, as if he were actually expecting her to show up all along. He genuinely smiles, the smug bastard. He smiles.

"How did you...?" he half-queries before his brain apparently falters. His jaw hangs a bit slack and his mouth stays agape from where he'd failed to finish voicing his question.

Mikasa just shrugs. She just shrugs. She can't speak. God, she can't even fucking breathe right now.

Eren squints his eyes at her for a millisecond before looking at the half-naked girl beside him, staring at her as if exchanging a few telepathic words.

Mikasa sucks in a deep breath, closing her eyes, pretending not to see the evidence of what could not be any more fucking unpleasant standing right before her (Eren's hair poking out in all sorts of directions. His taut, tan body as he, too, is practically naked, save for the sweatpants that hang low upon his hips. The scars—and she doesn't remember them being this many—across the skin of his chest and stomach). Her mind whirls and sprints at about a thousand miles per hour. Oh, God. Oh, God. Each second grows more desperately uncomfortable than the first.

Eren's surprisingly calm and composed voice snaps the chain of her thoughts though, when he cheerfully comments, "Mikasa. It's so good to see you."

"Oh," she heaves, opening her eyes, practically melting into the shell of her own skeleton from the embarrassment, saying, "I'm sorry. Now's clearly not a good time. I'll just—"

"Nonononono!" Eren interrupts, waving his hands hastily in reassurance and making the girl—Hitch?—next to him give him a catty, sideways glance. "It's alright just"—he shoots her a glare, practically burning holes into her bitchy expression—"hold on a second."

And with that, the door is being slammed shut right in Mikasa's face.

She hears the hush-hush whispers of both of them behind the door, the woman's ill-tempered tone raising occasionally in anger before lowering an octave to form what sounds like a needy, whiny coo. Then she hears a loud  _ thump!  _ which makes her jump and slightly fear for Eren's life. There's more ruckus, then silence, and Mikasa is left to stare out helplessly at an inconsolable shade of fading white and a slightly chipped  **210C** as her mind wanders off into the distance, regret and worry alike clamoring inside her head with loud, discordant clangs that boom:  _ See? I told you so. _

Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea.

  
  



	4. How Does One Breathe, Again?

"Get out."

"What!?"

"You need to leave," Eren exhorts, clutching Hitch's shoulders firmly in his hands. "Now."

"But—" She’s hardly done speaking before he's turning to scramble frantically through his apartment in search for something. A hot surge of anger bubbles to her face, turning her cheeks ruddy. Eren's not looking at her to see it, but by the tightness in her voice and her rancor-coated hiss of “are you fucking kidding me!?” he's pretty confident she's about to have his balls right now.

"Listen to me," his voice is low, a hushed whisper flung to her across the living room, fearful of breaking through the front door and reaching the girl standing outside. "Hitch. Listen."

_ "What?" _ God, if looks could kill. The scowl on her face is fire, her eyes burning like two scorching embers from hell. Eren knows that look. Hitch is about two seconds away from hurling the nearest blunt object in his direction. 

"The girl," he hastens, crouching down on the floor to reach under the sofa. "Remember the girl I told you about two weeks ago?"

"Um, no?"

"Hitch," he groans, patting the dusty floor beneath the couch and finding nothing. "The one. The one that's engaged now?"

There's a moment of silence as she watches him clamber to his feet, practically running in circles and flipping furniture over before darting into the bedroom in a quest to find what Hitch supposes is her clothes.

"You mean the girl you ran into the other night?" she drones, running a peevish hand through her hair. "The one you were freaking out about 'cause she's got your scarf or some shit?"

"Shhhh!" Eren edges the door to his room, holding out his hands and motioning for her to quiet down before mouthing,  _ yeah. That one _ .

Hitch gasps.

All traces of anger suddenly vanish from her face, amber eyes growing wide before scrunching up in amusement. "Oh, my God," she chortles, holding a hand to her chest. "Her?"

"Her." He grunts as he falls to his stomach to reach under his bed. "That's the one, Hitch."

"Holy shit!" she beams. Eren rolls his eyes. "No way! That's her? She's here?"

"Yes! Just— please, keep your voice down."

"Sorry, sorry." She peers into the bedroom, smirking at the messy sheets on his bed. "Boy, aren't you one lucky bastard right now."

Eren doesn't reply, instead he rises to his feet to throw a few scattered items across his room. Hitch watches as they fly from one side to the other, recognizing one of them as the washed-out denim jeans he wore last night. "Jesus Christ," she hears him spit under his breath, "where the _ hell _ are your clothes?"

She can't help her smile when he appears at the door, nearly panting, staring at her with panic in his eyes, asking  _ where? Please, where are they? _ . She tries not to take _ too  _ much pleasure in his pitiful state, and motions to the kitchen behind her with a cooperative jab of her thumb over her shoulder. The expression on his face goes flat, unamused, so she flashes him a devilish grin, unable to contain herself.

"You know," she chirps as he trots past her, "she's a lot prettier than you made her out to be. It sure is a reeeeal shame that she's engaged now. You're missing out."

"Fuck off."

She laughs. "I'm just saying."

It takes Eren only seconds to find her clothes, shoes and everything. He bunches them up in his hands, then jogs over to her and shoves them hastily into her arms, pleading, "Please, Hitch, quickly."

"I should be angry at you for throwing me out like this," she coos, jutting out her chin in defiance, "but I know"—her fingers ping the waistband of his sweatpants—"that I'll be hearing from you again tonight."

"Ugh." His eyes practically roll to the back of his head. "Hurry up."

Hitch just bites her lip and snickers. Right there, she starts to unbutton herself free from his shirt, shrugging it off her arms before dipping her legs into her jeans and pulling them up without bothering to put on her underwear. Eren's disappeared back into the bedroom, where he's working himself into a clean shirt and probably begging God for all kinds of grace. A mischievous little smirk plays along the curve of her lips as she slips into her now-rumpled blouse, chucking her panties nonchalantly to the side in a place he'll be able to find later. (Just for luck.)

When he comes out, dark green T-shirt merely tugged over his head, she tosses him his shirt, which he catches, throwing her his cell phone in response and saying, "Oh! Take this."

"Wha—?" Hitch's hands scramble for it but they miss. The phone hits the wall by her side with a loud, painful thump. Eren winces at the sound of it.

"Hitch!"

"What the hell?" she raps. "Horrible, horrible fucking aim you got there, boy."

"Take my phone," he's begging, flinging the shirt in his hands to a corner in his room. "Please. Please, I need you to take it."

"Why ever the fuck?"

He opens his mouth to speak but, just as quickly, it clamps shut. Because he does this a few times, he ends up looking like a fish (which Hitch finds kinda funny). A green-eyed, panicky, desperately-in-need-of-shaving fish. Yeah. 

"Well... I..." His gaze rolls about the room, all sheepish and whatnot. He runs his fingers through his hair, parting it all to one side with an angry huff as she squints at him, forcing her feet into her shoes.

"What, Eren?"

Finally, he sighs, capitulating. "I… I told her I don't own one."

Hitch straightens, staring at him with the blandest of expressions. Her fingers pinch the bridge of her nose, eyes squeeze shut, and she lets out a long sigh of exasperation. For a moment, she seems to think, to contemplate his pathetic existence. "And why would you—"

"So that she would come here!" Eren hisses, pointing his fingers to the ground and jabbing them downwards to accentuate his point. "Come on, woman. Help me out."

"Fuck buddies aren't supposed to help each other out," she snarks, retrieving the poor phone from the floor and checking the screen before waving it out to him to show that there's no damage.

"No." He works his arms into the sleeves and rolls the shirt down along his torso. "But friends are."

Hitch guffaws loudly at that. "I never agreed to such terms, buddy."

"Please?"

"No."

_ "Hhhhhiiiiittttch!" _

_ "Uuuuuuuuuggggghhhh!" _ She pockets his cell phone, shooting him a fiery sideways glance and searing, "You'll owe me for this, Jaeger."

Eren's laugh is breathy, the mixture of a nervous chuckle and a breath of relief. "I'm sure we'll figure something out. Here." He hands her her coat and purse, flashing her that stupid, charming, dazzling smile she hates so much. His eyes are bubbling over with gratitude, and the tiny dimple that flashes by the corner of his mouth makes her wonder if she's ever seen him smile like this before. She narrows her eyes at him when he whispers, "Thank you."

"Whatever," she shrugs in response, granting him that smug, wolfish grin of hers and chiming, "Have fun with your sexy, engaged, totally-out-of-bounds ex-girlfriend."

Eren sighs. "I really hate you sometimes."

"Oh," Hitch smiles, "I try."

Now, they stand before the door, peering at it like a pair of idiots. Eren sucks in a deep breath, then reaches his hand out and rings his fingers around the knob very slowly, very carefully, feeling the cool metal press against his skin, practically thawing in the warmth of his grasp. He hesitates, gaping at his clenched fist dismally, expecting it to burst to pieces or catch fire or something—anything. Just not… this.

Life, suddenly, is too good to be true.

This can't actually be happening to him, can it? Mikasa. Outside. Waiting. Here. To see him. Him. This can't actually be happening.

He hears Hitch chuckling quietly beside him, amused by his expression: the sudden fear in his eyes, the shaky manner in which he draws in a breath and blows it out unevenly, how his shoulders shake at the release of air like a leaf in the wind, clinging to a branch by a stalk too thin to hold it.

He looks… odd. The look of terror certainly doesn't suit him.

"You nervous?" she whispers, a rare tinge of kindness seeping through her voice.

Eren's answer is immediate: "Terrified."

Hitch scoffs. Eren Jaeger, scared. Well, that's a goddamn first. 

She gives him a gentle nudge on the ribs, teasing "You'll do fine, Fabio."

Eren takes in another breath.

Right.

The knob turns in his hand. A flicker of worry flashes through his mind then. What if Mikasa's not even there anymore? What if she's left? Maybe she changed her mind in the five minutes it took him to scramble around his apartment and made a run for it? (Please, God, let that not be the case.  _ Please _ .)

His thoughts are interrupted by the clicking of a latch. A millisecond of silence hangs between him and the door, suspended in the air, accompanied by the daunting realization that his entire future is literally standing right outside. Literally. There, only one door swing away, sporting a black coat and an expensive Prada purse—and with his scarf, his, draped gorgeously around her neck, stands The Girl. The Girl. She's there. She's actually fucking there!

_ You'll do fine, Fabio. _

You'll do fine.

Eren feels his heart hammering wildly in his chest, hoping, praying—for once—that Hitch is right.

 

**—o—**

 

The door swings open.

Mikasa jumps.

And holy God in Heaven does she wish she would've made a run for it when she still had the chance. Hitch's eyes are a glaring, brilliant pair of suns, burning holes into her face with a gaze of utter displeasure. Eren, on the other hand, runs an awkward hand through his hair before the corners of his mouth tug downwards to form an upside-down smile. His eyes seem distracted, not really looking at anything in particular. They meet her gaze for the briefest of seconds, but then quickly fleeter downwards to the ground.

Silence.

The silence in the air is painfully uncomfortable, and Hitch's scowl seems to have a noise of its own. Mikasa bites her lip, but before she can open her mouth to speak, the woman’s expression morphs into a wide cat-like grin that has her blinking, amazed, unsure of whether she's even seeing right.

And then, just like that, the woman downright  _ titters _ , smiling, laughing, like she knows something. Like _ she knows. _

Mikasa’s brows furrow, and at that exact instant, the smiling lady waltzes past her, through the small corridor, and into the apartment right across from Eren's. She hears the door slamming shut behind her. Boom. A provocatively loud echo that resonates through the entire building and prickles her skin in waves, taunting:  _ Mikasa, girl, you know you shouldn't be here. _

This is when she feels her insides drop.

Oh. Wow. So Eren's screwing his next-door neighbor. How pleasant. Why won't the ground open up and swallow her whole right about now? Mikasa feels every ounce of her body flushing with embarrassment. She almost wants to cover her eyes, to shield herself from the utter humiliation that is this current string of events.

All her previous courage leaves her lips in a long, dreadful sigh, and she realizes, shamefully enough, that she'd been holding in her breath in fear.

"Eren," she gasps suddenly, chundering out a hasty thread of apologies. "I am so sorry. Really, I-I don't even know what I was thinking! I should've—"

"You wanna come inside?" His words catch her off guard, making her eyes widen into a pair of startled, perfectly round orbs. Her long lashes circumscribe the whites around her irises, making them seem ten times bigger than what they already are. A smile digs its way through to Eren's lips as he watches her stammer helplessly, balling her fists so tightly he hears the groan of leather clenching in her gloves.

He kicks the door open with his foot, side-stepping out of the way to grant her access. "It's cold out here," he adds, beckoning for her to enter. "Please."

"Ah... I’m…” Mikasa's voice is too feeble for her liking, so she swallows, attempting to clear the lump burgeoning in her throat. “Alright.”

And then, suddenly, it's as if something just...  _ pulls _ her into his apartment. She's not sure exactly what it is, or exactly why she’s here, doing this, but feels good to let go, to relinquish control in this manner. Her feet move forward, almost entirely by themselves, and maybe it's just the curiosity—maybe it's the agonizing loneliness that she's been plagued with for some time—but, slowly, she makes her way into his home, crossing the threshold of his front door and traversing into a world very, very different from her own.

Now look at that. 

She did it.

Once inside, Eren closes the door behind her quietly, the latch clicking softly as if it were afraid to make too much noise, afraid that any commotion might break the fragility of her presence there and send her fluttering away.

For a moment, her eyes peruse the her surroundings, and the place screams such a raw presentation of Eren that she almost wants to laugh. Really, just... laugh, because it's all suddenly too funny. It's like she's stepped into a time machine and traveled back in time. Even the air in this place is different. Like it isn't part of this world.

There's a gentle mess of things here and there, books stacked up against walls and even some scattered across the floor. Dust clings to the idle blades of the fan that hangs above from the ceiling. Wine-colored curtains have been wretched carelessly to the sides, revealing windows that play an endless scene of snow that falls and falls and falls, as if endless. The atmosphere in his apartment is still and warm, disconnected from the cold breeze that freezes all life outside with its frigid, icy whispers.

Where she stands, Mikasa can see a spacious living room, in which a large sofa, a coffee table, and an armchair that clearly don't go together stand proudly among the wooden floor. The entire place is splattered with rich, earthy tones. Greens, grays, browns, faint yellows, all that. It makes her own home, a stark display of spotless creams and whites and chrome, feel wholly unfamiliar. There is a warmth in the colors, like if they gave off some sort of comforting, nuzzling heat. Mikasa doesn't really know how to explain it, but they envelope her. They lure her in. The colors, they speak. The entire place does.

She recognizes some of the furniture they owned back in their old home many years ago—and the TV, a big, wide-screen, HD monster of a contraption that Armin's grandfather had given them a long while back as a hand-me-down, makes something tighten painfully in her chest.

So she rips her eyes away from it, peering at the door that hangs ajar on a wall to her left. A sliver of space allows her a peek into his bedroom, where a bed with wildly disheveled sheets resides. Maybe it's just the sudden stillness of the room, or the soft sound of Eren's breathing, but Mikasa's turbulent thoughts simmer down to a stillness led by solemn admiration.

Silence.

This time, it is welcome.

Mikasa suddenly fathoms that this apartment is Eren’s own personal little spot in this vast world. This place, with its warm scents and talking colors, is wholly his. Wholly him. His little sanctuary. She realizes, with the soft release of a pent up breath, that it is the complete opposite of her own home. A glaring contradiction. The dusty fan, the books scattered on the floor and stacked against the walls, the discombobulated sheets on his bed and the mismatched furniture; the smell of something different cooking in the air, tingeing every sliver of the apartment with a declaration of… of different. Of new. Of something wholly new and yet entirely familiar.

Like Eren.

Right there, on that bed, goodness knows how many girls he's bedded, freely, unbounded, simply led by the whimsical laws of his very desires. Because that's just him, you see, the Eren she remembers. Impulsive. Not one to delve too deep into anything unless it truly rings his insides with something  _ more _ . And who knows? Perhaps he was even in love once—perhaps he's even in love  _ right now _ , and that is the place where he worships her, whoever the girl may be, with all the fervent affection he so direly possesses. She almost feels dirty at thinking this way, yet the thought is pure. Simply curious. Admirant, even. 

Every visible corner around her conveys a shocking resemblance to him, a map to what he's like inside. His untidiness, his blaze, how he talks and how he thinks and even the Persian rug under the coffee table shouts some small declaration of who Eren might be. The entire place—it's him. Him. 

She closes her eyes, and the small pocket of stillness within her dissipates, deserting her the way sunlight vanishes from the world as night approaches: slowly, gradually, then suddenly too quick.

Eren is utterly unmoving behind her, standing with his hands stuffed inside his pockets, almost as if he's waiting for her to finish eyeing the place before he’s allowed to speak.

Mikasa's baffled by him.

By all this.

How does he do it? Possess such bravery as to let her walk into his own home? She would not have been capable of doing such a thing. That would be like… like ripping her coat wide open and baring herself to him. Like allowing his eyes to pierce right through her and into her very core, to the naked expanses of her inner self she works so hard to keep stored away, safe from the world around her. This is his home. The epitome of all that is Eren. And he just lets her waltz right in here like it's nothing.

How does he do it?

And, most importantly, why?

"So..." comes his voice, and it's soft. She opens her eyes at the sound of it, deep and husky; a calm assurance threaded through every nuance in his tone. "What brings you here?"

A weary breath deflates her lungs. 

Well, that's a very good question, Eren Jaeger. She was sort of wondering the same thing.

"I'm, uh..." her throat runs dry, so she tries to swallow, but it doesn’t help. "I… um. well… I think… I've..." Oh, fuck it.

"That's alright," Eren offers gently. "I have to give you something anyway."

Mikasa's eyes widen momentarily. Her voice seems to have regained some small fragment of its usual composure when she asks, "You do?"

"Your pen," he smiles. "You left it."

Her thin eyebrows knit together in confusion. "My pen?" she says, shaking her head. "I don't understand."

"When I was giving you my address..." Eren voices slowly, making his way to stand by her side, cautious enough to leave an ample gap of space between them. "You turned around and left without it. I still have it."

Mikasa's frown only deepens, but the clarity that blooms in her eyes indicates that she knows exactly what he speaks of. "Eren... Why would I need back something so silly?"

The smile he flashes her then could outright blind a man. She finds herself struggling to keep a straight face in its presence. She swallows again. Her throat's gone dryer.

"We'll just pretend you came here to retrieve it," he shrugs. "Problem solved."

Mikasa stiffens. 

Oh.

So he knows. He knows that she's uncomfortable with her own presence… being there. But how did… How?

She scoffs. Right. Of course he knows. He read it on her—her discomfort, her distress. He reads her like an open book. That's just the kind of person that he is with her. That's just the kind of person that he is, period.

For a moment, this causes panic to spur inside her, to scream,  _ You shouldn't be here! Get out! Get out get out get out! _ Because she's so far out of her comfort zone—islands, oceans, worlds away from her comfort zone. And her reason’s gone. There's nothing pulling her, pushing her, urging or ushering where to go. Suddenly, she's alone. Without her courage, she's left deserted.

So get out.

This was a mistake.

Get out. _ Now. _

Mikasa clears her throat, standing straighter, pulling her frame up higher to seem taller, more confident, more in control. "Fair enough," she says, and the words glide over her tongue, spilling from of her lips with such ease, no longer tangled up in every corner of her mouth and addled by the swirling in her head and the ferocious beating in her chest. She's recomposed herself, it seems, and the soft smile that appears on her lips serves as her own declaration of the accomplishment.

Eren returns her smile with a quip of his brow, and the ghost of a chuckle passes through him before he's turning to walk away like a lion strolling through its den; Mikasa is his prey. But easy prey she's not. She's strong. She's stronger. She holds her ground, ignoring the trembling of her hands as she removes her gloves carefully, one by one, perusing her surroundings with calm, diligent eyes, finally deciding:

Ten minutes.

She gives herself ten minutes, and after that, she'll be gone. Ten minutes at his place won't kill her. She can do it. She's got this. You've got this, girl. You've got this!

"Want some hot chocolate?"

Not.

"Seriously!?" Mikasa's body perks up like an exclamation point.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," Eren smiles, the pearly row of his teeth practically glistening in the light. He's turning to walk into the kitchen when Mikasa reaches out a hand to object.

"No, wait!"

He turns around to look at her, an expectant breath released from his lips, like he'd been holding it in after talking to her. There's a benevolence in his eyes that suggests eternal patience for her, as he seems to know what she's going to say even before the words shoot out of her mouth.

"You…" she wrings her hands together, bunching up her gloves with a clenched fist. "You don't have to do that, Eren."

"Please," he scoffs. "Your cheeks are practically  _ glowing  _ red. You're freezing. Just let me make you some, okay?"

Wait. What did he just—?

Mikasa's fingers bolt to her cheeks Shit. Her skin isn't cold—she's fucking blushing!

"Alright," she surrenders, but he's already gone into the kitchen to prep her a cup of the sinful, sugary, chocolaty drink from hell (or heaven, more like). Damn you, chocolate, damn you! Why do you have to be so damn addicting. Why?!

"Put your stuff wherever," he calls out, his voice retaining its calm composure, not even deceiving him once.

Mikasa pouts to herself in annoyance because of this. Damn you too, Eren Jaeger. Damn you and your calmness and your hot chocolate and your green eyes and your stupid, ruffled, bed-tousled hair! Okay, maybe not the hot chocolate. Bless the hot chocolate. And maybe not the hair either. Or the eyes. Or the—oh, shut up.

"Sure," her voice is tiny. Eren couldn't have heard it—not that it would make any difference if he did. He's pretty intent on making her that hot chocolate. She sighs, shoving her gloves into her purse before shrugging off the thick coat lading her shoulders. She hangs it up on one of the wooden arms of the coat hanger standing by the door, then carefully peels off the scarf around her neck before hanging that up too. Her fingers brush over the skin of her neck in the process, and she feels the burning furnace of her flesh with a daunting prick of dread.

Ugh.

Why does she have to be so damn pale that even the faintest of blushes will peek right through? Why can't she be more like Jean—wait, Jean blushes. So does his friend Marco. And Connie, and Sasha, and… shit. Well, is Eren the only person in the planet who's skin is tough enough never to give him away? Because everyone else seems to have no problem blushing. She prays that he continues to believe that the roseate paint across her cheeks comes from the cold and not from, say, learning that he's having an affair with his neighbor or anything. 

Her purse handle digs into her skin from the bulk of its contents pulling down on the crook of her elbow, which is starting to hurt. Briefly, as she saunters over to the kitchen, she can't help but to think of Jean, of how he still hasn't called her, of how her phone might just ring with an incoming call from him at any moment—of how really, truly, this is the worst place to be in case he does call.

But all this is forgotten when she sees Eren standing with his back facing her, heating water in an electric tea kettle and starting up the coffee maker. Hot chocolate for her, coffee for him. It's almost like the old days, the way the smell of coffee floats out of an opened jar and fills the very molecules in the air. She almost swears she hears Armin's voice then, coming out from somewhere, whispering to her in the silence, telling her to go on, take a seat. Go on.

She thinks she feels him there.

She's not so sure.

It's almost like the old days, the way the smell of coffee floats out of an opened jar and fills the very molecules in the air… almost like the old days.

Almost.

 

**—o—**

 

Eren hears heeled footsteps approaching from behind. He turns his head to glance over his shoulder, catching a good glimpse of Mikasa.

And instantly regrets it.

He darts his eyes away, gesturing to the island that divides the living room from the kitchen, where three bar stools are tucked beneath the protruding edge. "You can sit, if you want," he tells her, fixing his eyes back on his current employment. His hand sifts through coffee granules to find the small measuring spoon buried inside, and some black specks stick to his palm from nervous sweat. He goes to wipe his hand clean on a kitchen towel when he hears her breathing, "'Kay."

Mikasa doesn't spare another second before taking a seat and slumping her purse on the rustic countertop. He's keenly aware of the screech of wood on wood as she pulls one of the stools back to climb onto it. Then, there's silence, followed by the faint sounds of her fingers tapping mindlessly on the wood.

_ Tap. _

_ Tap. _

_ Tap. _

For a moment, Eren is grateful that he's been too lazy these past few months to cut his long hair, for he feels the tips of his ears burning. Red. As red as the scarf that was coiled around her neck just seconds ago. His cheeks feel a little flushed too, so thank God he's been too lazy to shave also. Blushing in front of Mikasa right now would be disastrous. Lord knows it’s taken everything in him not to break out into a full-blown heart attack at the sight of her there—at the gasping sight of her without her coat on.

Jesus.

_ Tap. _

He's silently begging God for all sorts of mercy again.

_ Tap. Tap. _

He can feel her eyes on him, digging into his back, and for a second, he's got to remind himself how to breathe properly.

_ Tap. Tap. Tap. _

In. Out. Breathe in, breathe out. Not that hard, Eren. Not that hard.

Suddenly, the tapping stops.

"Pretty," he hears her comment, her tone as subtle as the snowflakes that fall outside. And just as if those very flakes were landing on his skin, her voice tickles at the back of his neck.

He doesn't dare peer over his shoulder to look at her this time. "What's that?"

"Your place," she croons, "I like it."

Eren shrugs. "It's nothing special."

"But it's… how do I say it… homey?"

"Homey?" he snorts.

"Yeah. Homey."

"If you say so."

His hands seem to have forgotten how to function properly. He gawks at the coffee maker for a moment as his brain re-processes the steps: Pour water into the reservoir. Check. Add black powdery shit into the filter. Check. Close the lid, put filter back, turn the power on. Che— wait, no. How does that go again?

"Hhhhhaaaaaaaahhhhhh," he hears her sigh, and it's so drawn out that he can't help it when he turns to check if she's alright.

A big mistake, that.

Because how the fuck—just how the complete, utter fuck can a human being be so damningly, perfectly, strikingly beautiful? Just—how? HOW?

Mikasa's staring out a window with her chin perched in her hand, blinking, not really paying attention to anything at all. A few strands of raven hair have fallen out of her neat, little bun, and burn a bright red color against the glow of the light. Her profile is soft, and perfect, apex-ing at the pointy tip of her nose. Her lashes, so long they're practically awnings over her features, flutter every so often with each shift of her eyes as her pert lips part with every breath of—

Ah.

Fuck.

Eren rips his gaze off of her, forcing his attention back on the coffee pot before him.  _ Tap. Tap. Tap.  _ The tapping's gone to a place inside of him now—a fervent thumping in his heart.

"You tired?" he manages to speak. He hopes the slight tremor rising in his body doesn't slip into his voice.

"No." Her voice is so light, like it's made of clouds. "I'm just thinking."

Thinking, he ponders. Thinking about what? "Oh," is all he musters, though. He can't think of what else to say after that.

"Do you..." she starts, but her voice falters.

Eren decides to finish the remainder of the steps in silence before flipping the coffee maker's power switch to on and turning, very cautiously, to face her. His fingers curl over the edge of the counter top behind him as he leans his weight onto it, the sharp edge of the marble cutting into his butt. 

"Do I what?" he prompts. His voice grows ever softer.

Mikasa's, however, grows fainter—very fragile, and Eren has a hard time understanding why. (So unlike her. So unlike her). There's a waver in her tone when she queries, "Do… Do you have a bathroom?"

Eren's features align into a peculiar sort of frown, half-worried, half-confused. Something in her face has changed entirely. She looks… turned off. Like a light switch in her has suddenly been flipped off'.

She must've mistaken his expression as a mock to her intelligence, though, because she's quick to correct herself and express:

"I mean… ugh. Sorry. I meant, can I use your bathroom?"

"Right in there." Eren points to his room. Thank everything holy that he actually procured tidying up the demonic mess in there—somewhat—before letting her come inside. She turns her head over her shoulder to follow the line to where he's pointing, and he catches the way she seems to stiffen for some reason. "It's the door to the left."

Her neck snaps back to face him. She looks at him with an expression of… panic? Her voice grows even smaller when she says, "You mean in your room?"

"Yep."

"Oh…" Her gaze falls to her hands, which wring each other nervously again, one within the other, taking turns. It's like… she's wearing her heart on her sleeve or something. Eren tries to open his mouth to speak, but her voice interrupts him.

"Okay. I'll be right back."

Before he can even say anything, she's hopping off the stool, and gliding across his home and to his bedroom. She hesitates for a millisecond, much like how he had done before opening the door to greet her, and then pushes the door in further and makes her way inside. Eren watches as she slinks into his room, the  _ click click _ of her heeled boots muffled to low thumps because of the carpet flooring in his bedroom. He watches her vanish past his bed, listens closely as the door to the bathroom opens, closes, and then...

_ Fuuuuuuuuuuuckkk. _

Eren releases the longest breath he's ever held in his lungs, his chest deflating with a wheezing noise like a squeezed, empty accordion. Both his hands run fretfully through his hair, bunching up some strands in his fists, pulling.

The water in the kettle begins to boil.

It bubbles angrily as he sucks in a few deep breaths, cradling his face in his hands, feeling the heat rising to his cheeks.. He groans, and the sound is trapped inside his palms. "Fuck." The room is spinning. Or maybe that's just his head. Oh, God. "Fuck, fuck. Fuck me."

Alright. Okay, so maybe this isn't going to be as simple as he thought. Easy peasy, he'd told himself. Easy peasy. That was lie. That was a big, fat, flamboyant, fairy-dusted, fictitious (and that's only counting the adjectives that start with f) lie!

Hitch's voice starts to coo from somewhere in the distance, gnawing away at what little sanity he has left. 

_ You'll do fine, Fabio. _

You'll do fine.

Really, now. Really? Then why do his lungs feel as if every breath suddenly hurts? And why are his hands trembling so much? And why—why—is his heart beating so damn ferociously he feels as if it's trying to pump all of his blood out at once? He's light-headed. He's dizzy. He needs water. God, he needs air.

Breathless. Breathless. How can a person leave him this breathless?

Fine, okay. Not a person. Mikasa. This is Mikasa we're talking about here, so of course he's on the verge of having a fucking heart attack. The Girl. The Girl—

Okay, no, stop. Stop thinking that. She's not "The Girl", she's "a girl". A girl. That's it. Just a girl.

_ Have fun with your sexy, engaged, totally-out-of-bounds ex-girlfriend. _

_ It sure is a reeeeal shame that she's engaged now. _

_ You're missing out. _

Damn you, Hitch. Damn you.

The small whimper that leaves his lips is utterly pathetic, but it's a good thing his face is still in his hands because—no wait, that's pretty pathetic too. Poor Eren Jaeger. Should his dignity rest in peace, for it's certainly abolished.

It's like, suddenly, Mikasa's presence is all that shines before his eyes. Even from behind his closed lids, he can see her! Feel her. Grasp the image of her standing there, behind him, with her purse in her hands, the coat and scarf finally off her body, baring her to him in simplistic ways he just isn't prepared for yet. Her hair all tied up, her slender arms hidden inside black sleeves of cotton, the small hairs that escape her little bun like they don't belong in there, like they're not meant to be drawn so far away from her face—and then, his own breath fucking hitching in his throat out of nowhere; his brain somersaulting inside his head, resetting, swiped blank.

Her chest.

Her collarbones.

Her.

The slender slopes that bend up her neck, down her spine, over her hips, across her legs—everywhere. Everywhere. A silhouette, a frame, a figurine craved from the richest, purest marble. Her eyes, always so fucking wide and startling, staring at him, eyeing him, burning into his skin and scorching it, setting him on fire, making his insides combust. Her silence, saying more than her own words, drilling into his ears and buzzing like white noise. The sounds of her breaths. The sound of her voice. The sound of her heels over his floor. His. Her. God, it's all so cruel. Too cruel. Too much.

And that fucking ring. That ring! It's like his heart can't even take it. He can't even stomach the sight: huge, sparkling, shouting money money money. Shouting everything he no longer has.

But she's real.

Mikasa, she… she's really here. She's come back. She actually stopped by and paid him a visit! What has he done to deserve this? Is it a Christmas miracle or something? Has made some truce with God? She's in his bathroom right now. His bathroom. In his home. Mikasa Ackerman is actually fucking here and holy shit damn it Eren Jaeger somehow managed to convince himself that he could handle that. How could he be so stupid as to actually believe that?! It's like—just look at her! One glance to her direction and he's got to learn how to breathe all over again. It's unnatural.

After a few more seconds of wallowing in his misery, Eren forces his head up from his hands, dragging his fingers down his face so that it looks like it's melting. His eyes flick over to the living room, eyeing the space she'd just walked past, admiring it as if it were a runway built specifically for angels, perhaps not fully believing the circumstances of his reality yet. Perhaps deciding that he never will. He sighs, and he's about to turn his gaze away when—

Pink.

Lacy.

Hanging on the lamp shade like a goddamn Christmas adornment—it's Hitch's underwear. Hitch's. Fucking. Pink. Lacy. Underwear.

Eren's breath catches in his throat.

Mikasa must’ve seen… 

His heart plummets to the floor.

Mikasa must've seen that! There is no fucking way she didn’t. The thing’s practically neon. Neon! Why must Hitch wear panties that are fucking neon?!

All the oxygen around him turns to poison. He chokes. He's suffocating. Panic reels crazily inside him because Mikasa just saw that. MIKASA JUST SAW THAT AND THAT IS WHY SHE STOPPED AT THE DOOR OH MY FUCKING— WHY GOD WHY?!

No no no nononononono that wasn't there before. That wasn't there three seconds ago! How did— How did—?

Eren's face falls tragically into his hands. The disgruntled moan that leaves his lips is utterly pathetic. Open up, ground. Open up and swallow him. The once-love-of-his-life has seen his fuck buddy's panties. Repeat: the once-love-of-his-life has seen his neighbor's fucking panties thrown over his furniture like a damn haphazard—

"Kill me." The prayer is to no one in particular, just to any deity that will listen to him, he supposes. "Kill me now."

_ (Damn you, Hitch. Damn you.) _

 

**—o—**

 

Staying calm is hard sometimes. Especially when you're having trouble breathing.

And Mikasa's having  _ a lot _ of trouble breathing right about now.

Her lungs seem not to want to cooperate as she darts her way through his bedroom, ignoring—trying very hard to ignore: the rumpled, messy sheets on his bed, the creamy color of the walls, the soft scent of him that lingers about everywhere and only wails its existence right into every prickling end of her nerves as she struggles not to suffocate—it's too much. It's all suddenly too much for her.

The bathroom isn't hard to find. It's a door to the left, just like he'd said, pried wide open so that she's granted with a full-frontal view of just how small it is inside. Too small. Not the right place to have an episode right now but it'll have to do—she has to hide somewhere.

Hide.

As soon as she makes her way inside, she's slapped across the face with the smell of a laundry detergent hauntingly redolent to the one that Armin always carried in his clothes—the one Eren's been using since forever.

The one his mother always used for him.

An image, fleeting, flutters its way across her mind: Carla kneeled on the floor of their home, trying to teach her and Eren how to fold their own clothes properly. Eren failing, getting frustrated. Carla laughing, her eyes disappearing into happy, crinkly crescents like two sparkling moons. Her laughter resonating through their home, like music echoing inside a theater. Their home. Happiness. Laughter. Happiness.

And Armin.

Armin smiling. Armin talking about something new. Armin hearing, listening, cherishing the sounds around him before— Before—

Stop.

The past is too much. Too much. It's all too much right now.

The door falls shut behind her. She leans her back against it, faint, panting, her knees nearly trembling with every tiny gasp. The walls seem to constrict themselves around her, closing in, the room growing smaller, growing tighter. She’s shaking so much. Her breaths are short, shallow, her heart hammers brutally inside her chest. Her pulse drums within her ears—she can practically hear her own blood rushing through her. Panic. So much inexplicable panic. It floods over her, a dam that has broken, emotions that drag her under, tossing, whirling, drowning her within her own self.

What is wrong with her?

Alright. Stop it, Mikasa. Stop it.

Control. Control. Smooth sailing. Control.

She closes her eyes, taking in a long, heavy breath, swallowing the breezy smell of the detergent along with it. The bathroom is a lot bigger than she'd initially thought, but her mind barely processes this. Breathe. That's all she has to do now. Breathe.

How much time passes? She's not sure. A minute, maybe ten. Her thoughts fade into the back of her mind, melting into thick, obsidian goo.

Nothingness.

Before her, nothing, just an image she has programmed into her head: a balloon. It inflates—inhale. It deflates—exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

_ Innnhale. _

_ Exxxhale. _

Breathe.

A few more minutes pass.

The storm, slowly, quiets. Her heart's drum is a steady beat, hard, inside her. The world stills, there is nothing but her own breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Control. Smooth sailing… 

Control.

She opens her eyes. The world focuses, little by little, and she sees the washing machine, then the dryer, both inside a small closet behind an opened sliding door that takes up nearly an entire wall. She blinks. She's dizzy. That's always what happens when she goes through this—these episodes. She's not sure what to call them yet. They just happen sometimes. They just... happen.

Her breaths stutter in and out of her mouth. She's still leaned against the door, succumbed to the calamity of her emotions. Spiral. Whirl. Clamor. Panic. Panic.  _ I still can't fucking breathe. _

Suddenly, she hears Eren's footsteps approaching from outside.

Her heart stops.

The wooden floor creaks under his weight as he moves. It sounds like he's nearby, close, maybe—hopefully not—inside his own room now. But then the sound disappears back into the distance. He's back at the kitchen.

Um. Okay?

Another deep breath, long, it kinda hurts her lungs to bear through it. There's a flush all throughout her body, the eerie stillness that follows all disasters. The flushing tingles at her fingertips, coiling in her palms. There's cramping all throughout her muscles, tight, but she ignores it. It's okay. It's okay. You're okay. You're fine now. You're fine.

White. A drain. She's staring into the bowl of the wash basin. How did she get there? Doesn't matter. Breathe. Breathing is what matters. Breathe.

She twists the knobs to lukewarm water, watching as it shoots out of the faucet and sploshes into the sink. She lets her fingers slip into the stream. Cold, it kinda hurts her hands. She holds them there, waiting for the feeling to return to her fingers. Soon, the water turns hot, then scalding, and she's hissing, snapping her hands away.

At least she feels now. Her body processes touch. She pokes her arm. Feels it. Okay, that's good. That's very good.

Her breaths are longer, less labored, less clogged in her throat. Part of her wants to call out for Eren—for anybody—to help her. Maybe… talk to her? Maybe that will help? She doesn't know. She doesn't know what really helps right now.

A few more minutes pass. There's silence outside. Eren's not making a single noise—or perhaps Mikasa's just not hearing any. Part of her mind, the delirious part, even suggests that he has left her. But it's his own home, and Mikasa's still in here. That's highly unlikely.

Her hands are shaky, but she cradles them under the stream, forcing them to still a little. She's about to splash some water on her face but oh, yeah. She’s wearing makeup.

Sigh. The water slips out through a crack between her hands. Soon, she's conscious, looking at her own reflection in the mirror and watching herself breathe. Well, look at that. You're getting calm now. See? That wasn't so hard.

You've got this. You're okay. You're strong. You're strong, Mikasa.

You. Are. Strong.

Slowly, she runs her gaze over her own features in the mirror, finding the same stranger she saw back home. She takes another deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Balloon inflates. Balloon deflates. Just like that. You're fine. You're fine now, you're fine.

Peevishly, she picks at a few strands of hair that have fallen out of her bun, smoothing them behind her ears, watching the faint blush that rises to her cheeks and, this time, understanding it. She's hot, all of a sudden, her body engulfed in fathomed flames. It always happens like this. Her body just… freaks out sometimes. Her heart starts beating like crazy and her lungs shrivel up to empty sacks of nothing and suddenly she's sweating and suffocating and shaking so much she swears she'll fall apart and crumble.

Nobody knows about this. About these "episodes". And she's been crippled by them for a few years now.

Nearly six, actually. Nearly six years.

They don't happen often. Merely three times a year, if that. But, lately, they've been occurring more frequently, arising in the most unexpected of times. At dinners. At parties. At evenings spent with Jean's parents—sometimes even when she's just alone with him, where she knows she's completely safe.

Why do they happen? She doesn't really know.

But she's not going to think about that right now. Thinking about that only makes them worse. Breathing. That's what she's gotta do. Breathe.

There's a buzzing and turning in her head that makes her light-headed. Her thoughts spin like clothes inside a washing machine, round and round and round. It takes another three minutes before her heartbeat quiets down to healthy intervals with enough time in between.  _ Ba-dump. _ A second.  _ Ba-dump. _ Another. Breathing's a little easier now too. She's getting there. She's calming down.

There's a big part of her that suggests she just go home. Just call it quits. She lasted, what, three minutes in there before flipping out? It's not ten, but that's not so bad, right? Three. She should just go home now. Go home and quit. Wait for Jean to get out of work like she's supposed to.

But… something inside of her throbs, like a wound that's been re-opened, gushing and bleeding and refusing to be ignored.

Maybe it's her pride, but Mikasa just can't bring herself to do it. She can't just walk away. Not now. There's something more here, something thick, heavy, hanging about in the air. A presence. It's pushing her forward. Pulling her in.

God, this is all so confusing right now.

She locks eyes with her own reflection, ignoring the fact that she dislikes what she sees. Her following thoughts are a streak of light in the consuming darkness of her mind:

Push yourself.

How do you ever hope to improve if you don't push yourself?

Sometimes, being out of your comfort zone is exactly what you need. It forces you to grow and to adapt to your surroundings. It stretches you, like a rubber band, and eventually, the wear of the experience will implant itself into you, and you will never be the same again. A band that's been stretched too far can never snap back to its primal state. What's important, is to take that first step out of your zone, and to stay there, instead of breaking and teetering back inside. Your comfort zone will always stretch itself out eventually and meet you where you stand. In turn, everything about you starts growing. But you have to push yourself first. Push yourself forward and force yourself to stay there.

Armin was the one who told her that.

And that's why she's here, isn't it? To break out of a monotonous routine? To do something? It's okay if it's just Eren (even if it  _ isn't _ just Eren). It's okay because she knows him, so it's definitely a start.

Although, today, things do feel a lot more different than how they felt before, two weeks ago, when it was like being with him was the most natural thing in the world. Seeing him again felt like… like a veil had been lifted right off her and the bleak opaqueness of her life had bled forward into clarity, if only for a moment. Being with him was like learning how to breathe anew. Even the air around her had grown different. A shift in the wind, a whisper carried in the night, it all led her there, to him, like she belonged there. Like she was meant to run away from her own engagement party all along.

But this... today is just so different. Everything feels clumsy, scattered and jittery. It's like they're teenagers again or something, and it's not just because she's discovered way too many things about his sex life in the span of four minutes than she's ever needed to know in her entire life (seriously though, neon pink panties on the lamp shade?) but it's because they're worlds apart again. Something feels… ripped away from her. Mikasa can't really explain it, but it's there. Wailing for attention.

On the bright side, though, she's calm now.

This time, her eyes run over her surroundings a bit more carefully, absorbing what they see. She sees the toilet, the tub that doubles as a shower, the frilly rug on the floor, the blue tiles on the walls, the chipped paint of the sink in front of her, the small mirror specked with dust. There's only one towel hanging on the rack. One. So maybe his situation with Hitch isn't all that serious? Not that it matters, of course. Mikasa's just mildly curious.

The pale shower curtain is wretched wide open, and she sees shampoo, a loofah, all the basic necessities. But something familiar catches her eye then. It makes her smile.

Old Spice body wash.

Aqua Reef.

The same one as Jean's.

Mikasa scoffs lightly, covering her mouth with her hand. Well, isn't that just uncanny? They both use the same damn body wash too. How cute.

How unfair.

Eren's probably wondering what's taking her so long by now and, to be honest, Mikasa's a bit surprised he hasn't come by to check up on her yet. She flushes the toilet to feign some sort of usage, and it does that horrible, gargling noise that sounds like the poor thing is choking on its own water. She giggles like a little girl at the sound of it going  _ glaaarrgglleee-ppfftpfftt-shhhhh _ . Ha ha. Ha.

Okay. She feels better now. Way better. Not perfect, not fantastic, but definitely better.

She takes in a long, deep breath, preparing herself for what she's about to do next. She can do it. You've got this, girl. You've got this! Rubber band. Rubber band. Stretch yourself like a rubber band.

Two things push her out of that bathroom and bring her back to Eren:

One, the stubborn decision that she will remain outside of her comfort zone until it goes out to meet her where she stands.

And two—well, this one's pretty obvious.

Hot chocolate.

  
  


**—o—**

 

Eren looks up from his drink when he hears the creak of the bathroom door being pushed open. Her footsteps follow—soft, tentative, a delicate presence floating through his room. He darts his eyes back down to his cup when he knows she'll be close enough to see him.

When Mikasa appears at the door, she finds him leaned over the island with his elbows propped atop the countertop, holding a ceramic mug that reads ' **How about a nice cup of shut the fuck up?** ' in his hands and blowing at the steam wafting off of it with pouted lips. In front of him is a smaller My Neighbor Totoro mug filled to the top with hot chocolate. A nice layer of whipped cream floats on the top.

Mikasa's mouth begins to water, on cue.

She smiles when Eren looks up.

Their eyes meet. Finally.

"You alright?" he asks her, taking a small sip of his coffee.

"Yeah," she breathes, hopping onto a bar stool. Her cheeks still feel a bit hot, and there's a small buzz, a vibration—still—in her palms. But she ignores it. She ignores all of it because she's strong, stronger than this. She realizes how close they are now, with him being on the other side of the island, right across from her, leaned over so close that she can see the golden flakes in his teal-green eyes as he watches her, searching her face.

He drops his gaze to his drink, dragging his fingertips along the side of his mug coyly.

"I didn't know how much you wanted so..." sliding the can of whipped cream over to her side, he smirks. "Knock yourself out."

"Thank you." She takes the small Totoro mug in her hands and brings it to her lips, breathing in its chocolaty smell mixed with a small trace of something that is just wholly Eren, as he's standing so close she can also smell something else, something sweet and earthy, radiating off his clothes and skin. The odd mixture of scents is strangely comforting to her. Warm.

Homey.

Eren doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's staring at her now. She feels his gaze on her as she closes her eyes, swallowing a small (or large, depending on your measuring standards) sip, and holy  _ God _ it's the whole chocolate tart incident all over again. Her taste buds scream with pleasure. There's a party in her mouth—balloons with confetti and poppers and everything. It's seriously unreal how much this girl enjoys chocolate, especially when there's a triumphant wad of whipped cream reigning on the top.

She lets out a tiny sigh of happiness, which makes Eren smile in delight.

"Good?"

"Delicious."

"Great."

And then they're silent after that.

The sound of their quiet sipping fills the room. Slurp. Sip. Swallow. They're so silent, Mikasa thinks she hears the snow falling outside, even though that's fairly improbable. Her eyes wander about her surroundings, admiring the kitchen, the floor, the dark spots and ridges on the rustic wooden counter top. She trails a dark vein with her finger, taking in another mouth-filling sip of hot chocolate. Eren's gone very silent in front of her, much like how he was when he allowed her to first enter his home—waiting. Waiting. Waiting for her to finish viewing her surroundings with an ease she, herself, does not possess.

Soon, though, her eyes trail off to something else. Something more… personal.

Eren isn't looking at her.

So she takes this as her chance.

It's funny, really, how just two weeks can change a person. Or maybe just a different angle. Or a different light. Because Eren… he looks so different to her now. Like she's looking at him—truly looking at him—for the very first time in years. She notices things that just weren't there two weeks ago, or that being with him at nighttime didn't allow her to see.

She eyes the small cleft on his chin, the button tip of his nose, the individual hairs of stubble on his face that look sharp and prickly, sprouting out the smoothness of his skin and dotting it like pine needles fallen onto the snow. She thinks of how they must feel under her fingertips, then doesn't bother to scold herself for such a brash thought.

He seems to be lost in thought, gazing at the counter top beneath him, tracing the veins on the wood with his gaze. His eyelashes, a dark brown color, are long and thick, just like how she remembers them; shooting straight out and curling up ever so slightly at the ends, fringing his emerald eyes like heavy curtains drawn shut to conceal precious jewels. She eyes the punctuated bump of his Adam's apple, bobbing as he swallows another sip.

Slurp.

Sip.

Swallow.

She briefly contemplates doing the same, to break the chain of her reverie, but chooses not to.

Mindlessly, she eyes the tendons stretching on his neck, the small sliver of skin over the junction of his collarbones, where his shirt begins and covers the rest of him. His arms are bent over the counter, so she sees the swollen mounds of his biceps, the hidden crook of his elbows, the blonde hairs on his forearms and the veins that stretch out like roads on a map, leading up to the smooth tannish backs of his hands, whence his long fingers stretch and curl around his ' **How about a nice cup of shut the fuck up?** ' mug, baring the ridges of his knuckles and hiding the profane text in his large hands.

His nails.

His fingertips.

Him.

His long, crazy, disheveled hair that shoots out in all directions, swept carelessly to one side so that it doesn't fall over his eyes, some rebellious strands sticking out and burning a bright, yellow color in the glow of the light. There's a tiny crease on the skin between his brows, which makes Mikasa wonder if she's ever even seen that there before. It might come from age. It might just be because of the intent way he's staring at the counter, like he's trying to pierce it with his vision. Who knows. Mikasa decides she'll never know the cause—and this time actually scolds herself for wondering how that might feel under her fingertips too.

Eren looks so different.

Eren looks entirely the same.

It's like she's seeing him for the very first time.

It's like she's been seeing him forever.

She narrows her eyes, and now she's the one blatantly staring. Eren doesn't seem to notice, though, or to mind, as his thoughts have apparently consumed him. She watches him blink. She watches the way one of his hands leaves the mug and lands over his his other arm, fingers absently grazing the exposed skin of his bicep, scraping it, his nails leaving pale scratch marks on his skin. But then—

Boom.

His eyes are on her in an instant.

Mikasa gasps (so much for being gracefully in control of herself) and then quickly focuses all her efforts into taking another gulp of her hot chocolate. The thick liquid travels down her throat as a scorching lump of fire. She winces visibly at her dumb mistake.

Eren's eyebrows raise, very slowly, to the top of his head. He seems to be judging her, calculating, weighing her on the inherent scale of his mind and coming to God only knows what sorts of conclusions.

She doesn't hesitate to retaliate against his stares with a low and breathy "What?" that makes his insides shake like jell-o. 

"What what?"

Mikasa simpers, tracing the rim of her cup with the tip of her finger. He stares at the chipped nail polish of her nails, thinking of how it sabotages the delicate balance that is her utter, unconscientious perfection. Much like the little strands of hairs poking out from her bun, and the shade of a small scar peeking out below her eye from underneath her makeup, the chipped paint over her nails rebels against the forced tidiness she's imposed on herself, reminding him she's only human. Reminding him that yes, even Mikasa Ackerman has flaws.

There's that lisp, breathless voice of hers again, rising and dipping with every shifting nuance of her tone. He could get lost in it. He could get lost in it forever.

"You're staring, Eren," she says, and he scoffs. He can't help it. The smirk that draws itself on his lips is pure and impulsive.

Mocking.

It's as if the demonic spirit of Hitch herself summons from within him, and he spits out before he can even think, "Oh, I'm the one staring?"

And that, right there, is when he takes a gigantic shit on everything.

The screech of tires burning over asphalt, the loud crash of glass shattering on the floor, the abrupt scratch of a record that's been interrupted—they are all the sudden look on Mikasa's gorgeous face. Funny how a set of simple words can completely change everything. His comment is the last blow that sends the wall crumbling down entirely. A big, big, BIG mistake.

Because Mikasa stiffens like a tree trunk. Mikasa stifles back another gasp. Mikasa suddenly looks… terrified.

Of him.

Terrified of him.

Eren watches helplessly as her eyes widen for a millisecond before shooting down to the mug in her hands, coiling into herself, shrinking away from him. Shrinking away from him. Shrinking away.

Fuck.

She looks like she's about to fall off the chair. Her body's suddenly too heavy, weighed down with shame. Shame. She looks so suddenly ashamed.

Eren swallows.

Panicking.

Fuck fuck fuck  _ fuck fuck. _

Instantly, he hates himself, his big mouth, his impulsive bouts that don't let him think because  _ idiot idiot idiot you fucking idiot why do you always speak out of your asshole and never use your head? _ He cringes. Hard. It's like he's watching a car wreck—his own disaster. Five words. Five simple little words and they are enough. They are enough to shake her, to send her fluttering away.

Because he knows. Eren knows how sensitive Mikasa is right now and how she's second-guessing being here and how much of a miracle it is that she's even here at all in the first place and out of all the things he could fucking say he just—!

"Shit."

She won't even meet his gaze. She's staring at the drink in her hands intently, quietly, not saying a word.

Her silence kills him.

"Fuck," he breathes. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine."

"Really, I—"

"It's okay."

Eren bites his lip.

FUCK.

Mikasa still won't look at him.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUC **K FUCK.**

"I'm sorry," she's the one to say. Her voice is laced with apprehension. "I don't know why I came… I..."

Eren feels the ceiling collapse on top of him. He can't breathe. He's choking when Mikasa suddenly laments, "I think this was a mistake."

Oh, my God.

Please.

No.

Her hands snatch her purse. "I should go."

There's the haunting screech of wood on wood as she pushes the chair back, the click of her heels meeting the floor and she's standing. The very things that brought Eren joy just moments ago, they haunt him. They hurt him. They make him straighten up and ball his hands into tight fists. He's watching. He's helplessly watching as it's all happening too fast. His mind barely processes anything at all except for:

She's leaving.

She's fucking leaving!

"Wait!" He nearly bolts over the island in desperation to stop her. "H-hold on. Just— Wait. Please?"

Mikasa's expression is pained. She shakes her head at him, slumping her purse over her shoulder and "I really shouldn't, Eren. I—"

"Mikasa." The way he says her name makes her stop. He takes this as his chance, whispering, apologizing to her with "Stay. Please. I just— Ignore what I just said. Pretend I didn't say anything. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot, Mikasa. I'm sorry."

She looks startled, surprised, surprised at his reaction. Her eyes are awestruck, her mouth agape; she is frozen into place, stuck between turning around and standing still to stare at him. 

She continues to do the latter.

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable…" he bites his lip again, scrunching his eyes shut, running both of his hands through his hair. "Agh, shit." Mikasa watches the way some locks glide through the spaces between his fingers, and how his teeth pin his bottom lip, pinching it so tightly she fears he might draw blood.

She looks away, since he's already caught her staring.

Eren opens his eyes to look at her, and sees that her cheeks are red. Flushing. And she look so small. Mikasa, out of all people, looks suddenly so small to him.

"Please?" he heaves, and there he goes, biting that damn lip again. "Seriously, I'm sorry."

Mikasa remains still, unsure of what to do.

Why is he apologizing so much? Why is he so contrite? He sounds so... desperate.

There's fading imprints on his bottom lip from where his teeth had sunken into it. Mikasa watches the pale patches start to fade. She watches. Just watches. She's so unsure of what to do.

What should she do?

_ Go home, _ her mind says.

_ Stay, _ her heart whispers.

Breathing. How does one breathe, again?

Mikasa opens her mouth to speak, and Eren stares—breathless—as a thin thread of saliva stretches between her parting lips. But then they clamp shut, pressed taut together, and she lets out a short breath through her nostrils.

"I really shouldn't," she vents, almost desperately, like an animal trying to escape a cage. "I shouldn't be here at all."

The sigh that leaves Eren's lips is weary. He can't help it when he dares, "Then why are you, Mikasa?" Oh, my god, Eren. Speak with your mouth. Your mouth. NOT YOUR ASSHOLE YOU IMPULSIVE FUCK.

But it's a very good question. It's the right question.

It makes her think.

He's challenging her, and Mikasa sighs, too. Her fingers clench even tighter around the purse handle as she murmurs, "I don't really know." Her voice so frail, so fragile. It almost breaks.

It almost breaks him.

It's so fucking unlike her that it physically hurts.

Her abyssal eyes... they're heavy, droopy, melting like ink bleeding onto paper. Dispersing, frittering away. He's losing her. He's already losing her and she just got here. She's already slipping away. He's gotta do something. He's gotta do something fast.

Eren takes in a sharp breath, and the sound makes her look at him.

"Well, then..." He finds his coffee mug again, bringing it to his lips and taking a long gulp to try to calm himself. He's got to be calm. Remain calm. Remain calm. This will assuage her.

His breath is hot inside his throat, intimate, a furnace in his neck when he carols, "Isn't that something?"

Her face—Mikasa's perfect, angelical face—it brightens. Slowly, so slowly, like sunlight dawning over the world.

Eren holds his breath, and he's been doing that a lot lately. There's a voice in him that cries for her to not go, to please please please don't leave me. Not now. Not yet.

It's too soon.

Too soon.

But he doesn't show his panic. Not at all. He keeps himself grounded, feels the coffee splosh its way down to his stomach, feels his own breaths, the silence in the air... 

Feels the way Mikasa's looking at him right now: Torn. Like she wants to go. Like she can't, really.

Then he finds some courage. From where it came from, he doesn't know. But he opens his mouth, passing the tip of his tongue over the bruised surface of his bottom lip, and hopes he'll make her stay, just a bit longer, stay, with a last-minute addition of "How'd you even get in here anyway? The front door's always locked."

Mikasa sighs then, and it's light, fluffy. Like she's made entirely of clouds.

Eren wonders what she must feel like. Her skin, her, underneath his fingertips. Probably very warm, he decides. Very warm and homey.

He doesn't dare to touch her, though. He doesn't bother to scold himself for such a brash thought either.

There's a tenderness in the silence swimming about in the room. It's got a presence.

"If I told you," she voices, her lashes fluttering as she averts her eyes even farther away from him, "you wouldn't believe me at all."

Eren tries not to smile. Because her hand has found its place back on the bar stool. Her feet are planted on the floor. Now, she's looking at him, staring at the golden flakes in his eyes like she's counting them one by one.

Like stars.

There are constellations in his irises. This time, Mikasa has a hard time forcing herself to look away.

A millisecond of silence hangs between him and her, suspended in the air, accompanied by the daunting realization that his entire future is literally standing right in front of him. Literally. There, only an arm's length away, sporting a small top-bun with frilly fly-aways and a permanent scratch below her right eye—and with his hot chocolate—his—lingering on her lips, stands The Girl. The Girl. She's there.

She's actually fucking there.

And she's actually not fucking leaving.

Eren is left breathless and stupid all over again. Because she smiles. And then he does too.

There's a promise in the snow, in the very flakes that fall outside, in the sighs of the winter wind that breathe and whisper, that she won't go. Not yet. Not now. Because she's got his heart in her hands. She's got him blundering and fretting and feeling all sorts of brilliant emotions that only happen when you're alive, that only happen when you're breathing.

Because there's that screech of wood on wood again. That click of her heels upon his floor.

Those eyes staring at him and burning through flesh and bone and right into him.

There's his own lips parting, gasping, taking in a breath for him to test:

"Try me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you all for all the lovely feedback from last chapter! It means so much and I seriously squeal like a baby pig whenever I read them. You're all so kind omg (now pls leave some more herr hurr). And like I mentioned, it will be a while until I update again, so if you have any questions, please PM me or talk to me on my tumblr.
> 
> PS: Mikasa and Eren think a lot alike. How some paragraphs and words get repeated between them and such... it's all done on purpose to show that there is still some sort of connection between them, even after all this time. But more on that later.


	5. If Life is a Garden, Then I Am a Weed, And She is a Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I will miss you always, even in the moments when you are right beside me. Time apart has planted longing inside me and I do not think it is a weed that will ever stop growing. It will always live there, but my god, it grows the most spectacular flowers." —Tyler Knott Gregson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Chapter contains explicit sexual content. 
> 
> We get to breach a sliver into their past, and see the final moments before Mikasa left him. So expect the lengthiest, angstiest smut scene you've probably read in your entire life. I do implore that you focus more on what is actually happening rather than just the sex, since every small detail of what occurs is what Eren has to remember her by for the next six years of his life. Imagine how obsessively he racked his brain over and over again for ages trying to see where he went wrong. 
> 
> Okay, anyways, enjoy! I suggest you take your time and read this in segments, as there are two scenarios that take place: past, and present.

How can she say no?

When,  _ try me _ , he says. Try me.

Strands of his chocolate hair have fallen over his eyes, swept all across his forehead. Unruly. A mess. It's how it fell when he let go of it. It's how it fell over his face. He looks so young, all of a sudden. So pure.

There's remorse in his eyes, a thick veil of emotion eclipsed by that impossible shade of green with blue. He's got that lip—that damned lip of his—pinched between his teeth again. Waiting. Waiting. Their breathing is the only sound that occupies the dense space between them, the bubble of safe distance they have kept between each other all this time. A careful plan. A silent agreement of _ , I stand here, you stand there, and I don't dare touch you, as long as you don't dare touch me. _ They maintain it. They hold it stubbornly in place.

Restraint is the step back from his previous frantic gesture when his hand, flying out to stop her, had reached out in despair. To her, for her, but not daring any contact. They don't fathom such a thing. They can't risk it. Not now. Not now, when they're both so fragile, so sensitive, just one feeble puff from being swept away.

Delicate is the way she stands, uncertain, so light, like she weighs nothing. Over the island, his hands ball into tighter fists, as if the gesture were enough to hold him down, keep him grounded, to stop him from granulating into dust in case she does decide to leave, just walk away from him again. Forever.

Because the possibilities are still floating around them in the air, whispering, taunting them both.

Because there is still that vibrant, plausible yes. That scathing, undesirable no.

Because it truly is that simple: one step, one foot after the other, one gentle glide out his home. A door, the soft click of it falling shut. The daunting boom that resonates, that indicates she's left. That's all it takes. That's all it takes to kill a person.

Mikasa stalls.

She hears one of his knuckles popping.

She eyes the pink plush of his lip, still trapped between his teeth.

She sees the way his cheeks burn, turning a brilliant streak of red in his embarrassment.

She watches his fierce demeanor crumble, and hers follow right along.

Mikasa watches. Just watches. Realizing the inexplicable honesty that is Eren. With such intensity he's just… so raw. His emotions bleed, pouring out of him. She can't understand it. She can't understand him. There's so much truth in him, so much.

He appalls her. She’s shocked.

When was the last time Mikasa ever saw someone reacting this way? When was the last time she ever heard anyone apologize to her like this? When was the last time anyone actually went out of their way to make sure that she's happy? That she's okay? When has anyone ever begged for her to stay?

Begged for her like this?

Begged for her at all?

Eren's eyes are sharp and luminous. Staring at her, staring at her. Filling the cracks of her skin, staining them, weighing her down. He's waiting. Waiting for her words.

Words. Seems that she's forgotten how to form them.

"Um..." Mikasa's eyes fall to the abandoned mug of hot chocolate. The whipped cream has softened to a weak lump that floats over the drink and swirls into it in faint streaks of white.

A sigh, barely audible. It leaves her mouth, and then Eren's. Because that's her favorite part, when the cream melts into the hot chocolate. They both know this fact well. Foolishly, Eren hopes this will make her linger. Stay. Just a moment longer. Stay. But she hesitates. Her eyes skitter over to the door, to the place she knows she should be going to. Go home, her mind tells her. Go home, every atom in her body screams. Go home.

But her lips are moving before she can stop them, defying her, sputtering helpless attempts at sentences she seemingly can't place together. "I buzzed," she says, and Eren looks tense, like he's holding his breath. Hanging. Hanging on to every word she says.

He nods imperceptibly for her to continue. Still blushing. Still red. He nods.

Mikasa swallows.

"I buzzed," she repeats, clearing her throat to assuage its tightening passage. "But nothing happened."

Eren's shoulders loosen slightly. "And?"

Mikasa's gaze falls, uncertain. Go home. Go home. Jean's voice is the one that tells her now.  _ C'mon, Baby. Come back to me. Come back to me. Go home. _

But…

_ Try me _ , Eren's murmur urges on, a faint wisp that floats around and latches onto her. It encircles her, tightens its grip. Try me. Try me.

Try me.

"And..." She closes her eyes, feet still planted to the ground, unsure of where to go, what to do, what to think, what to feel. Her heartbeat’s shot up to her temples.

_ Ba-dump. Ba-dump _ . The milliseconds shorten in between.

_ Ba-dump. Ba-dump _ . Man, she's getting dizzy.

She’s pulled to the door, pulled to Eren. Trapped, held stuck between the two. Stuck between a yes, a no, her quickening heartbeat, the possibilities that loiter, the glorious can of whipped cream on the island and the way her body shakes and she's so skeptical of what's right and wrong anymore and she's so torn, so torn, so torn. God, nothing adds up. There's a jumbled mess of thoughts in her head. She's being tugged and pulled and soon she's going to be tearing.

Mikasa opens her eyes again. "And so I waited. Outside. I waited outside."

The corner of Eren's jaw does that little thing it always does when he tightens it, that little throb. Mikasa thinks he's going to say something then.

He doesn't.

"But then I was getting cold so..." She glances at the chipped nail polish of her left hand, which tightens even more around her purse handle, trembling. Trembling. She can't stop all this damn trembling—and why won't it stop? Why is she so nervous? Why can't she breathe properly and why does she feel so light-headed and woozy and faint? Why?

_ What's happening to me? _

"So I buzzed one last time and—"

"Did it scare you?"

"W… What?"

"The buzzer," Eren says, his voice a mere flake above a whisper. Soft. Like powdered snow. "Did it scare you?"

Mikasa gawks at him with her mouth open, like she's not sure what to say. By the troubled expression on her face, Eren thinks she'll definitely leave now. He can already see her vanishing out the door, leaving him. And part of him capitulates, accepts his grim fate. But then… but then, Mikasa she…

She laughs.

She fucking  _ laughs _ and Eren's spirit kindles at the sound of it, overjoyed.

"Yes," she breathes bashfully, smoothing some strands of raven hair behind her ears. "Yeah, it really scared me."

A smile tugs at Eren's lips. He tries to fight it, but it proves to be too strong, so he relents, beaming so brightly Mikasa can’t help but stare.

She's careful, though. She looks away.

"It's loud, isn't it?" he grins.

She scoffs. "So loud, though."

Eren chuckles, and she relishes in the sound of his laugh. His hands unclench over the counter top, floating over to his upper arms, where he holds himself and rubs circles on the skin of his biceps with his thumbs. She studies him for a while, eyeing the scars on his arms, scars she doesn’t remember ever seeing there before. Scars that worry her, make her question why? How? Who did that to him?

"Anyways..." she's the one to say, and she can't help feeling that the air around them has grown somewhat lighter, easier to breathe. She pulls the bar stool back, lifts her foot off the ground and climbs back onto it. Like if somebody were pushing her to do it, she's driven to comply; she doesn't even bother questioning the spectral, internal nudge. Because there's just something about this place. A presence stands sturdy among the walls, like it's been living here forever.

Eren watches as she goes to sit back down. 

There's a noise.

There's the screech of wood on wood, that comforting click of her heels upon his floor.

There's Eren staring.

There's silence.

There's the tremor in her body and the shaky manner in which she holds her foot in the appropriate place, her hand supporting her weight to mount the chair that's suddenly grown taller, an obstacle, challenging to climb. She almost has to remind herself how to breathe all over again, she is shaking so much.

She knows.

With every part of her, Mikasa knows: this is a mistake. A big mistake.

Yet she climbs the stool, removes her purse from her shoulder and reclaims her spot by her end of the island, right across from the wild-haired, green-eyed boy with golden flakes specked across his irises like stars that have been sprinkled in his eyes. Eren sees her slump her handbag over the counter top, and it makes a  _ fump  _ kind of noise, sagging in its own weight. The gilded  _ Prada _ lettering on it gleams in the light, and it's so damn expensive, so grand, so irrational.

Like her ring.

"So I pressed the buzzer twice," she continues. "The second time, nothing happened again, so I stood outside in the snow for a while. But then..." She falls silent.

Eren prompts for more. "But then…?"

Mikasa sighs, shaking her head. "Okay. This is where things get really weird."

Eren smiles again, because she's talking. Because she's sitting. Because she's here. Because she hasn't left him yet and the way she inhales to keep on speaking makes his chest swell with a brilliant twinge of pride. Yes, yes, yes please keep on talking. Keep staying. Keep doing whatever the hell you want—just as long as you stay. _Stay with me._ _Stay._

"Okay," he says, bringing his cup to his lips. Mikasa sees him take a sip before setting the mug back down on the countertop. The liquid inside is a pale shade of brown, no doubt violated by questionable amounts of cream and sugar. 

He's eyeing her expectantly now, rubbing circles on his skin, blinking, waiting for her to go on.

Mikasa clears her throat. Right.

"So, um, yeah. So then, the door—literally, the door just… opened. It opened out of nowhere."

"Are you serious?" Eren anchors his hands over the edge of the counter top, arms stretched inside out so that his elbows face him and the protruding veins traveling along his inner forearms face Mikasa.

Oh, for the love of God.

She forces down a timid gulp of hot chocolate, ripping her eyes away. _ Don't stare at him. Don't stare at him.  _ **_Don't—_ ** "Yeah," she breathes, fixing her eyes on a stack of books piled up against the wall beside her. "I'm not kidding."

Eren's frowns at her. She doesn't see this. "You mean, the thing just opened by itself?"

"Yup."

"That's odd."

Her gaze drops, defeated. "I told you you wouldn't believe me."

"No, no. It's just…" He rubs the back of his neck, following her line of vision, staring at his own piled-up stack of old books. "How could a door so heavy just open by itself?"

Mikasa shrugs, forcing herself to look at him, swigging down another gulp of the rapidly-dwindling drink. Her snout is hidden inside the mug, so that the only things peeking out at him are her gigantic eyes. Her lashes flutter as she blinks, shrugs. "I dunno," and there's a hollowness to her voice, an echo within the cup.

"Hmm," is all Eren answers.

And he waits.

Waits and watches as she takes a long sip and then licks some whipped cream off the tippy top of her mouth, where her upper lip curves up into that glorious little cupid's bow. And it's such ancient Mikasa, that little move right there. Just like her tell-tale hand wringing when she's nervous and her intimidatingly stoic neutral expressions and her little sighs and her little eye rolls and even that tiny crease that pops out on the skin between her eyebrows when she's really mad, it has all been a part of her for as long as he can remember. It's all old and primal, etched into her being. All her.

And it's still there, in front of him. After all this time. Like nothing's even changed in her, even though so much actually has.

The way she licks whipped cream off the tippy top of her mouth reminds him of how she was when she was little. The Prada purse slumped over his island reminds him she's not that little girl anymore, though.

Eren doesn't realize that he's ogling her. He doesn't notice his own eyes boring into her hands, into the way she holds his old _ My Neighbor Totoro _ mug, admiring the swift rise of her finger as she brings it up to—

Oh, shit.

He's forced to blink his eyes away when she swipes it along her lip to clean off the whipped cream residue—because he knows that she'll dip her finger into her mouth right after that to lick it off, because he knows his thoughts aren't going to a pleasant place, because he knows he needs to be more careful,  _ a lot  _ more careful with her now. He can't just  _ be _ . He's gotta  _ think.  _ He's gotta measure himself around her. He's got to know exactly what he can and can't do.

And having naughty thoughts of her is most definitely  _ not  _ on the list of Acceptable Things to Do Around Mikasa. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

He watches—trying not to cringe under his own distress—as she takes another sip, and it all gets ten times worse when there's a sheen, juicy bead of hot chocolate left on her lower lip as she pulls the mug away. He almost wants to tell her, to urge her to clean that off too. To  _ please, Mikasa, get rid of it. For my sanity's sake. _

But she just looks at him. With those wide, perfect eyes.

And he blinks his gaze away from her. Again.

_ Pervert. _

Shh.

_ Pervert. _

Shut up.

_ PERVERT!!! _

Ugh.

"I thought—" Her voice is raspy when she speaks again, a consequence of the hot chocolate. "I thought that maybe there's some weird high-tech thingy in this building or something. You know, that lets owners open the front door with a button?"

Eren snorts, smiling at her use of the word 'thingy'. "Nah, there's nothing like that here."

"No?"

"Nope. This building's old. Like, old-old. It's a miracle it hasn't fallen apart yet."

"But then… How did…?"

"Beats me," he chimes, shrugging, trying not to look at the bead of hot chocolate still clinging to her lip. "I mean, the buzzers are messed up. Hitch and Sash got the names mixed up one night when they were drunk so maybe you weren't even pressing the right one. But the door just opening by itself? I've never heard of that happening before."

"There was no one there when I peeked inside," she adds, tracing a dark vein in the wooden countertop with her vision. "The thing literally just... opened up for me."

Eren shrugs again, his shoulders going up so high they press against his ears.  _ Don't look at her lips. Don't look at her lips.  _ **_Don't_ ** _ — _ "I dunno. I don't know what to tell you. That's never happened here, as far as I know."

Mikasa shakes her head incredulously, the bead of hot chocolate still glowing on her bottom lip. "But that's… That's so weird."

Eren nods, scoffing. "Ye-heah."

"How can a door just…?"

"No idea."

"It's odd."

"Yep!"

"I'm confused."

"Yep."

She holds a hand to her forehead, heaving out a breath. "Wow."

"I know," and Eren knocks back another swig of his coffee, just to force his own eyes off of her, and with a daunting flash he realizes that there's no more. He's drunken all of it. It's gone.

He gapes at the empty, spacious insides of his mug. At the sad, scarce drops of coffee still left within as, in front of him, Mikasa takes another diligent sip of hot chocolate. Slurp. Sip. Swallow. The tiny bead disappears from her lip ( _ thank you, Jesus _ ) but a flake of whipped cream has stuck to her mouth again ( _ FUCK! _ ) so she repeats that arduous, aloof procedure that leaves his jaw hanging slack.

Then her eyes land on him with benign curiosity. "You okay?"

Eren smiles, nods, says, "Yeah, yeah." But he's lying. He's lying 'cause he knows that being done with his drink before Mikasa's done with hers means that she'll feel like an imprudence. She's just— Ugh, she's just weird like that. So what's he supposed to do now? He can't not be drinking when she is. Knowing her, and the fragility of her entire existence at the moment, this will only make her feel like a nuisance!

_ So just pour yourself another cup, you dimwit. _

But his body starts spazzing out when he has too much coffee!

_ Just do it, you shit. _

But—

**_Do it._ **

Before she can speak again, Eren turns around and waltzes over to the coffee maker, all the while feeling her eyes on his back like pin needles pricking him through his clothes.

She's watching him.

"So..." he carols, and the splinter in his voice is dreadful, clearly giving off the silent debate he's having with himself. Too much caffeine makes him have awkward body spasms, but he'd rather twitch uncontrollably than have Mikasa feel like it's a mistake to be here again. So… looks like more caffeine it is. 

He sighs, honestly dreading the torture that his body will undergo in a few minutes. But, for her, he's willing to do it. For her, he's willing to do just about anything.

"So doors just open up in your presence, huh?" There's a pause as he reaches for the coffee pot. "You know what this means, don't you?"

Mikasa's gaze flitters around him in question, trying to see what he's up to, but he's pouring more coffee into his cup before she can come to any sort of conclusions.

Eren hears her sigh in her surrender.

Fuck yes. Right in time.

"No, I don't," she says, her voice suddenly very fluffy. Set free. He can almost hear the  _ ka-ching! _ of bonus minutes added to his time with her like extra currency. He turns around, finds her looking at him expectantly. She's genuinely waiting for his answer.

A dainty smile twinkles on his mouth, and Mikasa can already tell where he's going with this. Her face is quickly falling flat before he even starts to whisper:

"You're the chosen one."

Viewing the way his eyebrows raise dramatically and his fingers twiddle in the air, her eyes squint down to coin slots. Her voice is toneless when she drones, with equal caustic fervor:

"You're an idiot."

And you would've thought she'd given him the greatest compliment. The smile he gives her is so bright, the impossible dimple by the corner of his mouth flares like a damn beacon. Mikasa stares at it for a moment before it disappears once he speaks again.

"I'll get someone to check it out," he decides whilst calmly violating his second cup of coffee with copious amounts of cream and sugar. "Maybe the door's broken or something, I 'unno."

It takes her a few seconds to process what he just said.

"Wait. You believe me?"

She sounds genuinely surprised, which makes Eren smirk to himself. He doesn't know she's gaping at the backside of his dark green T-shirt and watching the way his back muscles move underneath it as he shrugs.

"Well, I mean, yeah," and he says this casually, as if doors magically opening up by themselves were the most natural thing in the world. "Of course I do, Mikasa."

"But—" She's quiet for a second. "But, why?"

The way he turns around then, the way he looks at her, it's as if to say that he'd be foolish not to, that she'd be foolish to expected him to do anything but. It's a highly improbable story—Mikasa can hardly believe it herself. And yet there's Eren staring at her with those green eyes carved from all the honesty in the world and he's telling her, "Well, you're here aren't you?"

And the question makes her hesitate. It makes her stop and breathe and hesitate because, "Yes. Yes, I am."

And then Eren's smiling again, unveiling that pearly row of straight teeth, that blinding dimple that sometimes makes her dizzy and that sparkling shimmer—that tremulous light glinting in his eyes.

Fucking hell.

"Anyways." Eren swivels around in his heels to reclaim his spot by the island. Steam wafts off his mug like smoke rising from a pan. He puckers his lips to blow at it, and the wisps of smoke undulate away from him, swaying forth like waves fleeing from his mouth.

Mikasa quickly diverts her gaze down to her hands.

_ Don't look at his lips don't look at his lips don'tlookathisfuckinglipssweetmotherof— _

"So how have you been?"

Caught off guard, she looks at him, realizing that it's been a very long time since she last heard those words. It's so suddenly refreshing to hear them. How are you? How have you been? Such simple questions and yet she hasn't been asked them in so long.

She's forgotten how to answer, it seems. She glances up at the ceiling, at the ground, at the cup of coffee in his hands, at the steam that still rises, at his wispy, messy locks of brown—

Nope. Don’t look at that either.

"Good," she says eventually, deciding that answer should suffice. "And you?"

“Wonderful."

"Oh, that's nice." 

He props his elbows on the countertop again, leaning in so close that Mikasa catches another whiff of his earthy, citrusy scent. His lashes are drawn heavily over his eyes, flitting subtly as he blinks and thinks and ponders. 

"Ssssoooooo..." he drags the word out heavily. The constellations of golden specks in his irises glow as he peers up at her, stars that twinkle in the eternal green night of his eyes. "And how's your fiancé doing?"

"Hmm?"

He nods at her ring before sipping some more of his coffee. "Your fiancé." Slurp. Sip. Swallow. "How is he?"

"He's great!" she gushes out, hardly breathing in the process.

Eren nods. "That's good."

"Mhm."

The silence that follows only lasts a second, for Mikasa's quickly taking in a breath to disrupt its discomforting presence.

"He's uh… He's at work right now."

"Oh." Eren's brows raise to the top of his head. "On a Sunday?"

He sees the way her eyes wince, clings to the nuance that drops in her tone when she answers, "Yes..."

"That's very interesting." Another sip. Studious. Thoughtful. "Does he always work on Sundays?"

Mikasa traces the rim of her cup with the tip of her finger, following the circles she's drawing with her eyes. Eren stares at her nails as she speaks. "Not always, no."

"Hmm." His eyes ascend to meet her, then adapt a gradual descend down the features of her face, absorbing every curve and shape and point, searching every corner and crevice for a hint of disappointment or frustration but finding nothing. Her expression is cool as stone.

Still, Eren keeps on pushing.

"That's a nice ring," he adds, watching the way she perks up at the comment.

"Oh, thank you," she smiles politely, but offers nothing more.

He watches her, taking another long gulp, eyeing the pointy tip of her nose, the cupid's bow at the top of her mouth, the subtle curves of her lips, the careful arches of her brows, her fair milky complexion and thinking of how once, long ago, she used to remind him of the very seasons outside. Today, she's winter. Her face is so pure and white, the pink pads of her lips seem like petals fallen onto the snow, specks of her lip gloss glistening like morning dew.

Eren wonders if this fiancé of hers ever bothers to swoon over these simple features, to marvel at the effortless perfection of his future wife. If he doesn't, he decides, then the guy's a fucking idiot.

"It's... like, huge." The ring, he means.

"I know."

"How long?"

"How long have we been engaged?"

"Mmmhhmmm."

"Oh. Uh, almost a month?"

"'Almost'?"

"Huh?"

" _ Almost _ a month?"

"Oh. Uh, yeah." She clears her throat, glancing at her ring. The topic clearly makes her uncomfortable. "Yes. A month. We've been engaged for about a month now."

"Really?" Eren scratches the corner of his eye. "Wow."

"Yeah," she smiles, but it feels forced. Something tells him that he should stop now, that he shouldn't keep prodding her like this.

Still, he pushes just a little farther.

"That's not so long, you know… Only a month."

Mikasa shakes her head, taking a deep breath. He watches the way her chest expands at the inhale, how it rises before it falls again. "Yeah, no. It's not. We only dated for a year before that."

"A year?"

"Yeah-hum."

"Interesting."

"And you?"

He smiles, one of his hands flying over to hold his upper arm. "And me what?"

"What about your…" she starts, but soon drops her gaze to the mug before her, tracing the rim once again, only this time with her eyes instead of her finger. Her lashes are heavy and dense, those damn awnings that hang over her face and cast a shadow across her features. Eren's smile only broadens when she looks at him. Her voice is soft, so soft that it tickles when she whispers, "Oh, you know..."

Eren finishes for her. "Love life?"

Mikasa chuckles. He would've thought it sounded nervous if it didn't make him feel so at ease with himself instead. Something about her laugh… he can't seem to get enough.

"Sure," she gives, taking another gulp of her hot chocolate, which has, tragically enough, chilled to room temperature now. The whipped cream no longer even exists, all melted into the liquid. 

Her eyes flicker upwards to look at Eren.

He’s quiet before her, standing, lost in his own coffee-sipping trance. She doesn't feel like disrupting the silence this time. She just feels like watching him. Watching him think. She stares as a wad of coffee travels down his throat, how his broad shoulders grow even wider as he ingests a large clump of air. "It's interesting enough," he shrugs dismissively, but the mug he brings up to his mouth is quickly bolting away from him when he adds—almost corrects, "I mean, I have a girlfriend."

"Oh?" Mikasa’s genuinely taken aback by his answer. "Really?" 

Eren only shrugs again, not giving anything more than a simple and altogether-bland "yup."

Mikasa plants her eyes on him. Is he lying? His hair is so long that it covers the tips of his ears, so she's unable to see if they're burning red like they always do when he's being untruthful. She can't help herself. She's curious now.

"Is it…?" She motions to the door, and it takes Eren a few jaded seconds to realize who she's talking about.

"You mean, is it Hitch?"

She nods, a bit sheepish, jumping at the loud snort that erupts out of his nose. Eren's face contorts into a grimace.

"Oh, no, no. No way."

"No?"

" _ No. _ Oh, God. Hell no."

"But—" Mikasa frowns. "But, then why…?" She seems perplexed, a coy thumb rising up to point to the door and she's genuinely puzzled, trying to piece it all together: the neon underwear, the hickeys, the splayed sheets atop his bed, the way she wore his dress shirt? Hello?! Because none of it makes sense if he's not dating her. None of it makes any darn sense! Why is he sleeping with her if he's not—

Oh.

OH.

Suddenly, her head clears with understanding. Eren tries not to laugh at her perturbed expression, at the faint blush appearing on her cheeks. His bottom lip clenches between his teeth. He bites back his amusement.

Mikasa's eyes are wide, staring off into the distance, and there's a hint of horror in her face.

Okay, Eren's having a lot of trouble holding in his laughter now.

"Oh. Wow."

"Indeed," he chokes.

"I…" Her eyes reach up to the ceiling, looking for consolation, repentance, help. "I see."

"Yeah."

"That's just… Oh, my."

And he breaks. He sniggers. He can't help it! Not with the way she's holding a hand to her cheek like she's just witnessed an atrocity. Not with the way her eyes stretch wide open, staring into space in shock.

Eren shakes his head, smirking. "Yeah, no. It's not like that with Hitch."

Mikasa squints her eyes at him, his words shooting around like torpedoes in her head. Her eyes narrow even more.

She understands.

_ It's not like that with Hitch. _

Translation: "We just fuck."

Revised translation: "We just fuck even though I have a girlfriend."

Re-revised translation: "We just fuck even though I have a girlfriend because _ I cheat on her sometimes." _

Eren draws his mug up to his lips, offering a her guilty shrug of his shoulders, some strands of his hair falling over his eyes and making him look like a kid who's just gotten into trouble. And he just keeps on smirking. At himself, at the glorious accomplishments of his love life. He runs a hand through his hair, the smirk on his mouth cracking open to reveal his dimple. He smiles at her.

Mikasa  forces down the last bit of hot chocolate in one long gulp, mostly just to ease the sudden tension in the air. But it doesn't work. She's shaken. Flustered.

Dumbfounded.

Awestruck.

_ What the hell!? _

Seriously, just— Is he serious, right now? He's got a girlfriend and another girl on the side! What the crap is that? Since when is he even like this? Since when?! Never, never, never in a million years would Mikasa even fathom such a thing. Having a partner  _ and _ a fuck buddy? It just makes no sense. Preposterous!

She can't help wondering even more what his life must be like now. In this place—this very place—he was just doing who knows what with that girl Hitch while having serious ties with someone else (poor woman, whomever she may be). The proof is written all over the place, screaming cheater, cheater, cheater! Two-timer! PIG! Talk about a complete 180 from the Eren she remembers. Eugh. Shudder. So he fucks his neighbor while he's got his girl on the side? EUGH. SHUDDER. In fact, God knows what those two were just doing in here a few moments ago. Judging by the discombobulated bed sheets, they probably did it on the bed—but yet somehow her panties ended up miraculously strewn over the lamp shade in the living room? So maybe not even there? Or do they just toss their clothing around like a bunch of crazies sprinkling confetti in the air in celebration? Maybe they just didn't even do it on the bed at all. Maybe they just go wherever, you know? Wherever, whenever. Wild, whimsical sex. On the lamp shade, on the floor, in the kitchen, against the walls, by the—

Oh.

Oh, my God.

Wait.

WHAT IF THEY DID IT ON THE ISLAND?!

Mikasa snaps her hands away from the countertop, bringing them to her chest, gasping.

Eren sees this. He's going to ask her what's wrong but—

An earthquake. A tremor. It shakes the entire world.

Suddenly, Eren's body fucking somersaults within itself in a furious spasm. His eyes flare wide. 

He panics. 

Oh, shit.

_ The twitching has begun. _

His coffee shoots straight up in his mug before landing back inside it with a wet, liquidy ploop. There's a few drops splattering onto the tiled kitchen floor beneath him, some even trickling down his hand. There's utter, extreme silence. Neither of them make a noise. They stare at each other, wide-eyed, shocked, speechless.

And then, suddenly—

"BAHAHAHAHHAHAA!!!!"

Mikasa explodes.

She starts laughing, and it's fruity. Loud.

Amazing.

That exclamatory burst that flies into Eren's ears and fills them to the brim. He jumps, taken aback by the way she goes into a frenzy of breathless chortles and nearly keels over the counter in tears.

She slaps a hand across her mouth, trying not to laugh even harder at the way he holds a hand to his chest, baffled, his mouth agape in his amazement. She doesn't know if he's more surprised by the way his heart nearly popped out of him from that twitch or if he's just terrified because of how she's laughing but—still chortling—she decides it's probably both.

She chokes a little, removing her hand from her mouth to apologize in small, hasty whispers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" and Eren sighs, seriously at war with himself not to crack into a smile at the way she giggles, covering her mouth, breathing out her pretty little words. "Oh, I didn't mean to laugh! It's just—"

"It's fi—" He tries to speak, but a second spasm cuts him short, shaking up his entire body with a violent jerk. Instinctively, he curses, grinding his eyes shut, spitting under his breath. "Oh my fuck."

And Mikasa's breaking into laughter again, her eyes disappearing into her face. She holds a hand to her tummy, nearly falling off the damn chair, cackling like she's just heard the funniest joke in her entire life. Jesus Christ. Eren scoffs, shaking his head, astonished. Jesus Christ.

He almost can't believe the sight before him. She's laughing so hard! He hasn't seen her like this before—not in ages. He doesn't even know how to react. To be honest, he's even starting to get a little worried.

"Um, Mikasa?"

"I just— I just—" She can't talk. She's laughing so hard she's practically wheezing, the poor woman. "I'm so sorry, oh my God. So sorry, Eren, I just—"

She balls her fists over the island, falling forward like a drunk, her shoulders shaking with every suppressed snigger as she lets her head wilt in between her arms in defeat, hiding the blissful expression of her laughter twisting up her face. Eren goggles at the back of her neck as she trembles for a few seconds, giggling and snorting like a little girl.

"Jesus," he breathes after a moment, worried that she might pee herself if she doesn't stop. "What is wrong with you?"

"It's just— Your face! The face you just made, Eren! I just—" She starts laughing again. And then, he can't fight it, he does too. She's cackling like she's crazy. He's chuckling nervously like he's scared. This woman seriously has the most concerning sense of humor. It's incredible.

A few moments later, Mikasa falls back into her seat, breathless. "Aahhhhh, I can't. I can't." She shakes her head, covering her face with her hands, hiding the pretty, childish blush that has spread across her cheeks.

He's the one that's suddenly breathless now, blown away by how beautiful she is, by how freely she's giggling and smiling, by the little charcoal-colored strands that have fallen out of her bun and her chipped nail polish and her chest and by the way it heaves and bloats and shakes and just— Just—

Holy  fuck .

Mikasa takes a few deep breaths, recomposing herself, bringing a hand down to her heart, holding the other to her cheek, clearly surprised by herself. Her chest rises and falls in between her sighs, in between every blissful inhale and exhale and whispered apology. "I'm sorry, Eren."

"Don't apologize," he tells her, and he's pretty fucking confident his cheeks are burning bright, cherry-red right about now. His entire body feels hot, suffocated under a thick blanket. It's like her laughter just… reached right out of her and grabbed him.

He sees her re-adjust her shirt, which has rucked over her shoulders and rolled up by the sleeves, wallowing in the scratchy sounds of her nails scraping her arms and ribs over the black cotton fabric. Her collarbones are punctuated, peeking out of her skin. And, it may just be the fact that black is slimming or some shit like that, but her arms look really lanky, all of a sudden. And now that he notices… so do her hands. And her fingers. And her face. And her neck looks... longer. Thinner?

Wait.

He feels a prickle in his heart.

A very painful one.

Dauntingly, Eren realizes that something's definitely gone wrong. He blinks at her, her laughter still ringing in his ears, the dark realization of why she seems so small and fragile to him punching him square in the face. He blinks again. All her giggles dissipate to nothing once he realizes:

Mikasa's lost weight.

And a lot of it.

But why?!

Even her breasts look smaller. The curves drawn around their swells are smoother, not as full, not as round. And her damn chin's grown tinier too! It looks pointier. Sharper. Drained. Like the juice has been sucked out of her. Like the fullness that once filled her points and edges has been squeezed right out.

What.

The.

Fuck.

(???!!!)

He doesn't get it. Why is she suddenly so small now? So thin? Like she's shrunk. Like she's waned in size and strength and withered altogether. A grand, fierce assembly of a human being, dwindled to a feeble girl with thin fingers and lanky arms.

There's another prickle. A stab.

Eren's distress burgeons, weeds that latch onto his flesh and itch and scratch and scathe.

Her fiancé. What's he doing  to her?

Why has he let her grow this frail? Does he not realize she's not meant to be this way? Does he not notice the way her cheekbones poke out of her skin? That her arms shouldn't look like noodles?! It's all so wrong. So wrong, so wrong, and he doesn't understand it. How come he's only noticing this now, too? How come he didn't notice this the very first time he saw her? When she bounced right off him and landed in his arms and looked up at him and said it. His name. She'd brought him back to life again.

She's so different. He can't help it. He can't stop.

Suddenly, he sees.

Him.

Her.

The night she left him.

How she'd looked then, how she looks now, how they're total opposites.

She's so distant now. So distant that he's scared that if he reaches out to touch her, he'll find nothing. A specter. The haunting dread of his fingers passing right through her, of her spilling through the cracks, disappearing before his eyes, dispersing into the air and vanishing like nothing. A dream. Nothing.

But the girl from that night had been so vivid, so real—his entirely. She'd smiled like this. She'd laughed just like that. She's turned that brilliant shade of red from her giggles and from—

The thoughts come.

He's taken back. Swallowed into a vortex. Spat right back out into his past.

It all happens in an instant.

Suddenly, irrevocably, Eren only sees—

— _ Mikasa. _

_ Perfect,  so  perfect, shaking underneath him, splayed open on his bed, bared in all her vulnerability. Saying that she loved him, that she'd never leave, that she'd stay with him forever. A promise. A vow. _

_ "Always, Eren. I'll always be with you." _

_ She'd stabbed the words into his heart, perched them up like a statue. Held them there. Held him. _

_ Whispers between kisses, messy, mumbled words, declarations of 'I want you' uttered and pronounced, laced with truth and strength and iron, engraved into their skins, their flesh, their backs. A promise painted on the walls of their home, released into the world around them. Declarations that were shouted to the sky, proclaimed out to the heavens: I want you. I'm yours. You're mine. We're together. We have nothing left to fear anymore. Their breaths twirling in the air around them, flowing from their lungs, fueling them and tying them together. Joining them. As one. Half-lidded stares out glazed-over eyes, hands that shook and trembled, that surveyed for each other in the night. That never rested until they found each other and everything was okay. _

_ They were safe. _

_ They were home. _

_ They were together. _

Eren gasps, swallowing a thin slice of air.

Oh, no.

This can't be happening. Not now. Not now.

He closes his eyes.

His chest hurts.

He can't see. He can't see anything but—

_ —The moonlight. _

_ So vibrant, so alive, throbbing with colors and scents and pooling on her skin, glistening like silver on her sweat. The entirety of her existence—so ethereal, so angelical, far too much than what he'll ever deserve. The milky smoothness of her face, the tautness of her thighs, the familiarity of her smell, her warmth. His sanctuary. The haven hidden in her arms, blossoming like flowers that burgeoned all around him. A garden. In her sighs the very colors of his life. The muscles that clenched and unclenched as they rode to a crescendo, that coiled all throughout as they reached their peaks. _

_ Once. _

_ Twice. _

_ Three times over. _

_ He could make love to her forever. He swore, he swore, he swore. Eren promised himself that he would. Love her. Keep her. Cherish her until the end of his days. With every breath and palpitation, with every beat within his chest, with every ounce of his being. _

_ Till death. _

_ Till death do them part. _

Shit.

Oh, shit.

He's feeling sick.

Mikasa's clueless to what's happening to him.

She stares at the snow falling outside. He thinks he can see the flakes reflected in her irises.

"I don't know why you're having another cup of coffee, Eren. You know how your body gets."

And there's a smile on her lips, a faraway look in her gaze, the snowflakes melting into the black pools of her eyes. She isn't looking at him.

He can't breathe.

He's clobbered by the way she says—

_ —His name. _

_ Sobbed into his shoulder, grazed onto his skin with her teeth, breaking free to arch back, to be gasped. She'd felt so strong, so welcoming, so amazing, so pure. His home. The sole purpose of his existence. Her promise, floating around them in the dense, panted air. Always. Always. Always. _

_ Always. _

_ I will always be with you. _

_ He was so sure. So sure, so sure. She promised him. The truth weighed heavily in his bones, bubbling up the surface of his skin, boiling like water that evaporated into the stutters that formed at the tops of his lungs. The truth. She never lied to him. Never. _

_ Mikasa wouldn't lie. _

_ Not to him. _

_ She wouldn't. _

_ He was so sure. So sure, so sure. _

_ The entire night etched itself into his brain: the stars, the moon, the pillows thrown right off the bed. All little things that hung over his head on strings. Never to be forgotten, never to let him rest. He'd be haunted by their plague, by the tragedy of that night. _

_ The beauty. _

_ By the saltiness of her sweat on his tongue. The taste of her lips, her neck, her belly. The shapes of her breasts, their fullness; how they'd filled his hands, his mouth, his eyes. Constants. Things about her that would never change. He'd memorized her shape entirely, her curves, learned the dips and slopes and edges of her body. So much so that he would be able to find them blindingly in the night with his eyes closed; feel her breath against his neck and catch the quiver of her skin and know he'd found a sweet spot, a tender point in her he craved. _

Mikasa's smiling. Still.

Scratching her shoulder.

Shaking her head.

Smiling.

Eren's hit with how she looked back then, how she'd felt, and it's suddenly become much harder not to see right through her clothes. Not to think of how she'd tasted, how she'd smelled. Of currants and raspberries. Ancient, inexplicable Mikasa. Ancient and old and his.

The images in his head only worsen. A torrent. He stands helpless as it comes and takes him. It crashes into him, pulls him in, drags him under.

He's swept off.

Drowned.

He looks away from her.

Helpless. So helpless.

He looks away.

_ She'd looked so right. _

_ Everything about her had been so right that night, the only right in his world of constant wrongs. _

_ There had been her skin, plucking over with goosebumps under his touch. He had been gentle, he had taken his time. Clothes fell off their bodies in layers, barricades that fell bit by bit, barriers that crumbled only gradually, not all at once. They shed their worries off along with their garments, until the only thing left between them was her skin, her panties, and a navy-colored bra. Her eyes had sparked with tenderness and love, an eternal care for him. The little smile she'd given him when his fingers tickled on her back had granted him permission, told him it was okay, to keep going. His stomach clenched, suddenly nervous. _

_ They hadn't done this in so long. _

_ Her voice was light and airy, small sighs that passed through her lips as he slipped off what was left on her. First, it had been her bra: a cheap, simple thing she'd owned since High School. It was small on her now, her breasts practically spilled out of the cups. He'd kissed their overflowing swells as he worked on the fastenings, thought of how they'd grown much bigger in the past few months so that most of her shirts fit her uncomfortably and he would hear curse under her breath a little more than usual, which wasn't much to begin with. He'd spent days relishing the sight of her, watching in amusement as she struggled to stuff them in "these damned, stupid things!" she called her bras. She was always fretting over their size. They made her life impossible, got in the way of everything and made the perverts stare. She rushed and raced to hide them, said she couldn't understand why they still wouldn't go away. The words had scratched him at the back of his head, reminded him of their loss, of violent shakes to wake him in the middle of the night and streaks of blood staining the bed sheets. The terrible look on her face when— _

Stop.

Please.

His eyes scrunch shut, the adrenaline pumping into his body all at once, spurring and mixing and burning and hissing and—

He opens his eyes.

Sees her.

He's not looking at her. He's staring at the cup of coffee in his hand, at the rivulets that trickle down his fingers. He's not looking at her.

And yet he sees her.

How?

Are her eyes fixed on him?

Is she watching him?

He hopes not. He hopes.

It all gets worse.

Worse.

He drowns.

Drowns.

He's a coward. He doesn't look at her. He can't bring himself to meet—

_ —Her eyes. _

_ Staring at him as he flung the worn-out little thing to the side, useless piece of clothing to be retrieved later. And they'd done that so many times before. Their clothes had flown across countless rooms, landed over countless floors, fell around them in their passion and yet there she was, lying on her back with her arms thrown above her head, looking at him, smiling, and Eren was still unsure of whether what he saw breathing right in front of him was actually real or not. She had such an amazing smile. A smile made for the gods. _

_ And it made her look so young to him, all of a sudden. Fifteen, sixteen. Not nineteen. _

_ Not anymore. _

_ He watched her breathe. _

_ Her chest, bare now, rose and fell in a slow cadence. Perfect, gentle breaths puffing out her lips, nervous little glances shot his way as he surveyed her with his eyes, admiring her neck and chest and collarbones and the pinkness blooming in her cheeks, flushing, and her lips, trapped between her teeth in nervousness—and before he knew it, he was touching her, feeling her breathe under his fingertips, running his thumb across her bottom lip and holding his breath as she kissed it, as his fingers ventured lower and reached the space right in between her breasts. _

_ He leaned in, landing one kiss—one, chaste—to the skin there, feeling her sigh for a moment before pulling back just to look at her, to absorb the exquisite sight of her face, of the bosoms that had increased in size along with other specific parts of her, things about herself she'd grown to hate but that only made him love her even more. He thought with delight of what she'd do right then if he told her, smirked at her and told her she'd grown a great pair of tits. Probably ram her fist into his mouth, he figured—he'd already seen her rip a bra in half in her rage a few nights before. He stared at her, stared at her. Stared at his gorgeous, incredible wife and felt a part of himself die at the ethereal light radiating off her; so placid and serene were her splendid little breaths and her nipples were perked and pink and he was so madly in love with her, so fucking deep in crazy stupid love with her it was nuts. _

_ He hadn't taken her immediately, instead just marveled, watched, felt himself go painfully hard at the sight of her, his teeth stabbing into his bottom lip, just like hers, but for a whole different reason. Mikasa had laughed, a breath, covering her face in her embarrassment. He'd captured her hands, kissed them, looked at the black, forever-chipping nail polish of her nails and the scratch below her eye and told her she was beautiful. She'd turned a little red. He'd told her that he meant it. With all his heart, meant it. It never took much to remind him she was the most beautiful woman in the entire world. _

_ She'd looked at him, smirking, waiting for his move. A challenge. He loved those. He loved it when she looked at him like that. He'd started by her face, planting kisses on each one of her features. Her forehead, her nose, her eyelids, her chin. He'd lingered by her lips, nipped at them and heard her hum, licked her cheek and heard her giggle. _

_ "What the heck?" she'd laughed, the greatest sound in the whole universe right there. Her laugh. _

_ "I thought you liked it when I licked you," was his response. He'd bit his lip again, smiling at the way she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and rolled her eyes at him. _

_ "Yeah." And she'd turned a little redder. "But not there." _

_ "Oh. I'm sorry. Where, then?" _

_ Another gorgeous sound. She groaned at him in frustration. _

_ It made him titter like a fool. _

_ There were the careful seconds spent admiring her, his attention loitering for a while on the spaces just around her lips. They had time. They had time. Time stood still when they were kissing. The earth stopped spinning when his mouth reached south. The air grew thinner when a gasp from her lips held his right in place, just above the pulse point of her neck.  It didn't take long before they were ghosting over the curves of her shoulders, hands lightly working up her sides, feeling how soft and smooth and warm she was. A little prelude to what was ahead was the patient way she watched him, while naughty thoughts danced in his mind and he contemplated all the different ways to tease her. She'd bitten her lip in anticipation when there  _ was no more  _ skin left on her chest for him to rediscover, when what was next was, hopefully, his paying attention to something else. Something a little more… sensitive. _

_ She'd watched in silence as he placed his mouth over her right breast and held it just above the peak, opening it slowly, breath all hot and enticing on her nipple, tongue reaching out to touch her but— _

_ He stopped, looked up at her, smiled. _

_ Mikasa groaned again. _

_ Her breath hitched when he kissed her, though, right there, on the point of her peak. But he told her to have patience, that they had time. He told her—kissing the other one as well—that they had time, they had time, they had time. _

_ Time, time, time. _

_ Somehow, he had ignored the notion that perhaps she knew better. _

_ Neither of them said anything more, because then came her panties: white and flimsy, a pink little bow adorning the waistline, tiny red hearts dotted all over the fabric; cute, baby-ish designs that had Eren smiling to himself again. He chuckled once he recognized them. He'd only seen her wear them once before. _

_ When he'd pointed them out to her, she'd covered her face again, told him to "just take them off already" and "stop, no, don't stare at them, don't". He'd kissed her lips for the twentieth time, snorting at how embarrassed she was that he'd caught her wearing mismatched underwear, like he actually gave a shit about that kind of stuff. _

_ "I didn't know you still owned these." _

_ "Shut up." _

_ "They're cute." _

_ "Stop." _

_ "I like them." _

_ "You're just saying that 'cause they're what I wore the first time we—" _

_ A gasp from her own lips interrupted her as he slid his fingers down the front of them, red, tiny hearts swimming and bulging around the sudden intrusion of his hand. Her eyelids fluttered shut, mouth flew open, face morphed into that angelical expression that made every part of him melt. _

_ He smirked, forever finishing her sentences. "Had sex?" _

_ "Mhm." _

_ "So?" His hand hardly moved against her, but her hips were already hasty and impatient, urging him to move a little more, a little faster. She opened her eyes in her frustration. He still wouldn't budge."What's wrong with that?" _

_ She slunk her hand right over his to marionette his movements. For a moment, he let her. He let her move his hand against her just the way she wanted, just to see her close her eyes and stretch her neck back and sigh. He saw her throat bob a little as she swallowed, then he moved his fingers a bit more, completely on his own, watching her chest heave with deeper breaths. Her hips ground up to meet him, to rub him more against her, to feel him more and more and more. A foreign kind of desperation. He'd never seen it on her before. _

_ He didn't bother questioning it, either. _

_ Her voice was raspy when she spoke again, threatening to turn into the moan that grew tighter inside her. Eren smiled real fucking bright at that, even more so when her words came out all laced wonderfully with pants. _

_ "So you're opinion… is unfortunately… invalid." _

_ "Invalid?" _

_ "Yea-up." _

_ Eren's grin only broadened. His eyes were green and blue and wicked. "Oh, that's not fair." _

_ "It's—" _

_ He pressed his hand to her sensitive bundle of nerves. Pressed hard. Had her cursing out and gasping. He couldn't help but relish in that. Hearing her curse was like witnessing an oddity. An oddity he'd learned to love—especially if his name followed. _

_ "F-fuck, Eren." _

_ "What?" _

_ "Stop it." _

_ "Stop what?" _

_ "Stop teasing me." _

_ "Am not." _

_ "Oh, you really—" _

_ He did it again. _

_ He had her gasping louder, covering her mouth, blushing furiously."I'm sorry, what was that?" The smile on him was positively evil. He saw her eyes snap open, glaring at him, her cheeks splattered with blotches of deep crimson and lips bruised from all their kissing and all her biting. _

_ His tiny dimple flashed. _

_ The crease between her eyebrows popped out. She scowled at him. _

_ "I hate you." _

_ "Oh?" _

_ "I—" _

_ He slipped a single finger inside her, licked his lips at the way she arched and forgot everything she was just about to say. His voice was a lot thicker all of a sudden, syrupy and oozing into her ear as he leaned in close—real, real close—to taunt her. _

_ "Say that again." _

_ She pressed the words to his neck, pressed them hard so he would hear her. _

_ "I. Hate. You." _

_ But the way she hummed and smirked at him all begged to differ. Still, he slipped his finger right out, and she looked at him, surprised, her lips parting to protest but then he'd given her more. He pushed both his middle and ring finger inside her and ground his palm against her clit, watching her slump back and sink into the bed with her mouth blown wide open like she didn't know whether to gasp or moan or scream or what. His fingers moved deftly within her, pumping in and out, curling, teasing her in the most beautiful of ways. They moved and he rubbed and they moved until he was pulling groans out of her like flowers from a field. Soon, his name was being breathed and bitten back to be contained inside her mouth. _

_ He couldn't help it. _

_ He couldn't help but stare, couldn't bring himself to look away from her. His gaze was cemented to her face. He watched her. Watched her squirm and wilt and wither underneath him. He'd never seen anything look so fucking perfect as it fell apart. He loved being the only one who ever got to see her that way, the only man in the entire world who ever had. Her first. Her only.  Her always. _

_ Despite her noises, the world around them was completely still. There was such abyssal silence outside their home that it was as if the entire world had quieted in reverence, as if the universe had agreed to halt the course of all living things, stop everything. Just for them. Just so that the night could be eternal—and it felt like it was. It felt like it would never end. There was nothing but him, her, the noises she emitted. _

_ And the words that fell right out of his mouth. _

_ "I love you, though." _

_ They spilled out clumsily and fervently, gushing out like too much water held inside too little space. But still, Eren felt no shame in pronouncing them. He felt no shame in uttering his purpose, his truth. _

_ And then, slowly, Mikasa opened her eyes. Hazy, onyx orbs slid open, looking at him. Still panting, still red, her lips frozen around his name… she looked at him. Just looked at him. _

_ He smoothed her hair back with his free hand, tucking some silken locks behind her ear, saying the words again; saying them loud and clear so she would hear him. _

_ "I love you, Mikasa." _

_ And then, slowly, she smiled at him. The silence around them was so intense that it was loud. So intense that one might hear the tremulous light of the stars, feel their crying and their buzzing and their ancient millennium songs. Stories made from years that can't be fathomed and yet all were felt within their hearts, because their love was that tremendous. With such passion he admired her. With such splendor she smiled at him. _

_ He'd never forget how she gasped and beamed and told him, all breathless and red and spectacular: _

_ "I do, too." _

_ I do, too. _

_ He held his forehead to hers, clammy and sticky with sweat but he didn't care. Strands of his hair stuck to her skin, his mouth just adjacent to hers and he whispered, "Stay with me." _

_ Her promise had been quick. "Always." _

_ Eren sighed. He sighed in bliss and relief and happiness, but also in pain and dread and doubt. He kissed her lips, breathed them in, inhaled her scent and respired deeply against her. _

_ "Say that again." _

_ "Always, Eren. I will always be with you." _

Make it stop.

Please, God, make it stop.

The thoughts, the thoughts, the fucking thoughts.

They won't end. They won't leave him. They won't stop.

In front of him, Mikasa bites back another glorious giggle.

His mouth purses into a taut line.

Eren wants to scream.

To press his hands to his ears, to stop all the memories from getting even worse but they come prowling, they come screaming, ear-splitting screeches that hit him all at once. Wailing. Wailing. He can't stop them. He can't stop.

They consume him.

Eat him up.

He wants to scream.

To cry.

Let it end. Let it end. Make it stop, please, let it end.

The girl holds a hand up to her chest, sighing, breathing out his name.

"Oh, Eren."

She's killing him.

She's killing him.

_ He'd never felt so alive. _

_ His mouth had already reached down past her navel, kissing the little pink bow on her panties, tracing some of the tiny red hearts with the tip of his tongue. He heard her scoff and giggle, body trembling underneath him as she laughed. He didn't say another word. He didn't even look back up at her. _

_ Instead, he pressed his tongue against her, right there on her center, to that spot that made her weak and kissed her through her clothes. Kissed her once, twice—just a bit lower—and then just that was enough, just that was enough to make her shiver. He took in that smell that was purely Mikasa, her panties rich with her currants with raspberries scent, inexplicable and perfect and mixed with a tinge of vanilla from the humble lotion on her skin. Soon, his desire for her was overtaking him. He'd felt the heat pooling in his abdomen, her fingers gliding through his hair, the attentive way she watched him and known that she was waiting. Overwhelmed, he couldn't stop. His body thirsted and ached, his hands grew cold and greedy. He wanted her. He wanted her. He wanted her. _

_ So he took her underwear right off her in a flash, in a moment kissed his way up her one leg, and before she knew it he'd flung it over his shoulder and entered her all nice and rough. She'd been shocked into such a state of euphoria, staring at him with her wide, inky eyes and gasping once she felt how deep he'd gone inside her with just his first thrust; going even deeper when he pushed her leg up by her thigh and gave his second, his third, shifting his weight forward so that his fourth filled her completely and then they were both crying out, they were both closing their eyes and dissolving into the sweet rapture of becoming one, making up for lost time together by making love. They clung feverishly to one another, held on tightly like they would both disappear if they didn't hold on tight enough, and then everything would end. _

_ A gust of wind entered the room then, cool whispers that flew in from the open window. It blew quietly on their skins, attempting to dry the beads of sweat that formed along their bodies. But it failed. Soon, drops of him were landing on her, and she'd felt his sweat mixing with her own, felt it fuse and form into the sweet, musky scent of their love making. She'd never fancied dancing in the rain. She'd never been much of a fan when it came to running under downpours. But when it came to him, when it came to this, she would worship every single droplet that fell off his skin and onto hers. There had been times when those had been tears. There had been times when it was blood that spattered on them instead of salt water. Together, they seemed to share the best and worst times of their lives. But that night, it had been his love that dribbled onto her, and with every fragment and shard and broken, chipped-off piece of herself, Mikasa accepted each and every drop. Eventually, those had seeped through her skin and flowed into her veins like affluent water. They'd coiled at her nerves, turned to rivers and to waves. Soon, they were both deluged with one another, inundated by their bliss. Where crimson streaks had once stained, their love now thrived and blossomed. He pushed her leg up even more, held himself against her and went a little deeper, so that the same hue of red that had once haunted them now bloomed on her lips and cheeks like a rose, petals that slipped out of her mouth as she panted and heaved, as she flourished and reached her peak. _

_ What once was cruel was now very beautiful. _

_ That's just what the world was like when she was with him. _

_ Once that was over, he slid her leg off his shoulder, slipped out of her carefully, and let his arms collapse from the exhaustion. He summoned just another ounce of strength, just to kiss his way down her centerfold and rest his head atop her stomach, where he finally allowed himself to fall. His weight settled on top of her. She didn't complain. She held him. He found refuge in her arms. _

_ Eren closed his eyes and felt her belly rise and fall beneath him, swaying as she breathed. He never noticed she was crying. He never figured out why, but she was. _

_ In the silence, Mikasa wept. _

_ She wept. _

_ And he was clueless. _

_ Clueless. _

_ They regained their strength shortly after, and then her hands were roving up and down his upper back, his shoulder blades, cupping his face and bringing it up so he would look at her. _

_ "I want you," she said, brushing off the sweaty strands of hair that stuck to his forehead. She didn't let him see that her eyes were red. She'd looked down and taken his right hand in hers to trace the scar across his palm with her finger, and it looked so small, her little finger, small and delicate and cute over the coarse, healed slit of his old wound. Her hands always looked so tiny next to his, despite how strong they were. _

_ He couldn't help feeling that something was different with her that night. Wrong. _

_ "You're not tired?" _

_ "Not tonight." _

_ She spoke without looking at him, tracing the scar over and over, adoring it with her eyes, admiring it with a sweetness and affection she only had for him. She told him again, just low enough under her breath so that he barely heard her. _

_ "I want you." _

_ I want you. _

_ And then she'd kissed it, that ugly thing that held so many of his nightmares, kissed it and caressed it with her lips. They were smooth and fragile like petals, reverent kisses pressed to his broken skin until another part of her body replaced her mouth and she was guiding his hand across her chest, guiding it until she filled his palm and held it snug and warm against her. If only for a moment, Mikasa had erased the scar right off his skin. She'd slid her fingers in between the spaces of his knuckles and moved his hand in a way that made him close his eyes and feel her, close his eyes and hold his scar against her while she made something so sickening and hideous into something mild and serene. It never ceased to amaze him how the girl could always do that: take all his ugly, broken parts and mend them back together, make them whole. Make him happy. _

_ Soft sighs rose against the silence once he finally gave her what she wanted and took the warm mound that filled his hand and brought it to his mouth. He ran his tongue along the peak and felt her arch, rolled the bud between his teeth and heard her gasping, lapped at it and clamped his teeth around it and soon she was raking her fingers through his hair and moaning, and he was reaching south to press his scar against her in a whole new way, slipping it between her legs and relishing in the consequences, listening to her break and curse and fall apart anew. He felt her wetness on his fingers. Felt her need for him in his hand. She was bright and real and breathtaking. She was his. His. His. _

_ Then, he swallowed one of her pink buds into his mouth and sucked. The sounds she'd made then were heavenly, like music to his ears. He sucked on her nipple and stroked her until she was squirming too much and he was sure he was done torturing her. Then he'd moved on to the other one, done the same, done her the exact same way for a long while until he decided it was best to let her breathe for a second—but just a second, 'cause soon his head found its place between her legs, and those had found their place over his shoulders, and then those soft moans of hers had turned into a lot, lot more. _

_ There were the sounds she'd made, low and raspy, soft litanies that spurred him on and kept him going. The way she'd clutched his hair, balled some strands into her fist, pulled tight and keened and sighed and keened a little louder. Louder, louder. Curling her toes over his back, crying out his name like it would save her. Quivering thighs over his shoulders, fingernails dragging along his scalp, Mikasa growing tighter, noisier, weaker and oh so fucking beautiful, so fucking perfect, so fucking right. The sweet tang of her fluids released into his mouth as she came. She broke. He tasted her. All of her. Held her down, drank her in, felt her shake and heard her mewl and whimper until she could take no more, until the bliss was too painful, too much, until the only thing left was to yank him by the hair and beg enough, enough, enough. _

_ Until the only thing left was to turn him on his back. _

_ Return the favor. _

_ Have him be the one holding on to her hair, breaking underneath her, drawing some obsidian locks into his fist and watching as she sucked him clean, tugging gently and telling her to stop, to usher him back in—he wanted to feel her, needed her to show him that they were both still there, still breathing, still alive. _

_ She complied. _

_ He watched. _

_ Her hand on his chest, holding on for leverage, she lowered herself until she'd taken him in whole. There was a gasp. A tremble. Her hips swaying to a delicate dance of push and pull, eyes glued deliberately to his, never breaking away, never leaving him. They demanded that he watch her, hold his breath, stare on helplessly as she rose and fell and swayed and did whatever she wanted with him. She had him at her mercy, had him crumbling at the palm of her hand. Her silken hair ended just above her shoulders, all wildly pretty and disheveled as some strands fell over her face, sticking to her lips, parted in her ecstasy. Her head tilted back, but not completely—not yet—she still forced his eyes to watch her, held his gaze with hers. She had him splintering and stuttering. Speechless. She always made him into such a mess. _

_ And then her hand deserted him, leaving his chest in a quest to find his palm, to bring it to the center of her chest and hold it there, make him feel her heartbeat through his scar. To show him that they're complete, they're perfect, they're infinitely alive. _

_ Ba-dump. Ba-dump. _

_ That they both deserved to be, no matter how bad they both wished they had perished along with everyone else they'd lost. _

_ Ba-dump. _

_ No matter how much they both wished they weren't. _

_ Ba-dump. _

_ They were alive. _

_ Ba-dump. _

_ They were  chipped  and frayed and  fractured. _

_ Ba-dump. _

_ But still very much alive. _

_ Her heart stopped. _

_ She brought his  hand  up to her cheek and held it there, leaning into his touch, closing her eyes  and  releasing him from  her spell.  He ran his thumb over the scratch  below her eye, watched her take in a breath to say something. _

_ "I love you," she told him in a whisper. _

_ "I love you," he told her right back. _

_ There was not much left to say after that. _

_ Their language was her dance now, his hands hoisted on her hips, thumbs denting her skin as he gripped tight and bucked up into her and felt himself go far too deep; felt himself go mad and get lost in her, get lost. _

_ She moved slowly, never wanting their connection to end, trying to stretch out their time together but there just wasn't enough. There wasn't enough for him or her and not enough equity for anything. Soon, the churning hunger in her gut seethed at the unfairness, her muscles screamed and burned. She grew desperate, she moved faster, she pushed frantically for more. _

_ "Eren..." _

_ He bucked up harder. Watched her break. _

_ "Eren, please." _

_ "What?" _

_ "Please." She was so far gone, so lost in him completely. Pink and red and sweating, she couldn't even think straight. Her words were sticky and hasty with no spaces in between. "Pleasepleasepleaseplease—" _

_ "What, Mikasa?" _

_ "I want you to— I want—" _

_ He sat up. _

_ She went dumb at the sudden shift of angle. _

_ He gripped her arms and pulled her to him, feeling her wrap them safe and secure around his shoulders, snaking themselves around him in her strong viper grip. She hissed in pleasure and pain and desperation, clinging to his skin. He brought his mouth up to her ear—still moving in her—and asked, "What do you want?" _

_ "I—" _

_ His digits sunk into the dimples on her lower back. She melted against him, mewling into his neck. _

_ "What, what?" _

_ She couldn't speak. _

_ He slunk his hands down lower and groped her rear, dug his fingers deep into her skin and then lifted her up so that he was half-way out of her. She bit her lip, helpless, resting her hands on his shoulders and looking into his eyes. The moonlight shone in from the windows, illuminating their bodies as she waited for his fingers to finish gliding up her sides, searching for some blurry hints of green in front of her but finding none. There was no consolation, no light. She starved for him, for that familiar glint in his green-and-blue orbs. _

_ But they were absent. _

_ He didn't look at her. _

_ Instead, he focused on the way his fingers grazed her edges, traveling up the her curves to the slender slopes of her waist, drawing out her divine hourglass figure in the night. She was so fucking mesmerizing. He couldn't understand it. His hands didn't hold her anymore and he knew that she was tired. Her legs shook beneath her, threatening to give out. But she kept herself suspended over his lap, breath quivering with the effort, waiting for him to grip her waist and hold her and make her his. When he did, he rubbed circles on her skin, supporting her weight, holding still and waiting as she slid her hands down his arms, feeling his muscles, his skin—and something told him that perhaps she was admiring him too. Perhaps she was memorizing his body just as he was memorizing hers. Perhaps she sought after his warmth so that it would stay with her forever. Perhaps she needed him as bad as he needed her. Perhaps. Perhaps.  _

_ Finally, she held on to his biceps, pressing her forehead to his, breathing. Her breath was hot and alive against his face. _

_ Finally, he looked into her eyes, gasping. The girl never ceased to take his breath away. _

_ There were no sounds around them. Nothing but their uneven puffs as he pushed her up just a little, just so that he was out of her a bit more. She never took her eyes off him. Neither did he take his off of her. _

_ A pause. _

_ The room, suddenly bereft of any breathing. _

_ "What..." _

_ And then he yanked her right back down until she landed on his lap. Her face opened in surprise. She cried out, sinking her nails into his arms."Do you..." And he did it again. Heaved her up and pulled her down with a jerk, their skins meeting with a slap, the sound mixing with their voices as she keened and he grunted and they huffed helplessly together. Her hands flew behind her and held on to his knees, leaning back so that when he lifted her again and brought her back down, his length plunged into her at that angle that made her scream. He had her crazy. Her jaw hung slack and lovely, eyes rolling back and swiveling like they didn't know where to go. She was panting so hard. It made him grow even stronger."Want me..." And she carved her nails into his knees when he did it even harder, throwing her head back and screaming so loud he knew the neighbors could hear. She was shaking. Her face was pained and vulnerable and he loved it. "To—" _

_ But then she made him forget everything at once. _

_ Retaliating, she went and took the lead, rendering him useless by repeating that same move all by herself, mimicking it perfectly, clamping her arms around his neck and reminding him she's so powerful, so much better than he'll ever be. _

_ She lifted herself up, the seconds hanging in the air until she'd almost slid off him entirely, just his tip still left inside—but then she took him right back in and ground down on his lap real fast, real hard. Hard enough that she had him stretching his neck back and groaning out a “fuck”. Hard enough that she couldn't help it and she'd done it again, just to torture him, just to hear him moaning in her place. Just to lean in and taunt him and say: _

_ "I'm sorry, what was that?" _

_ His mouth was torn between biting his lip and smiling at her, so he did both. He did both and her cheeks shone bright crimson, her heart turned a little fiercer and a little braver and his voice mixed with the butterflies tickling in her tummy, hot and delicious like chocolate melting on her skin. His teeth grazed her earlobe and he answered: _

_ "I said..." _

_ The way his breath fanned the curvature of her ear made her skin tingle with goosebumps. A staccato. Pauses that made her lose herself in his voice. _

_ "What. Do you. Want me—" And he found her breasts and squeezed. She choked back a noise, reflexes bolting to clutch his hands, indicating that he'd hurt her. Her face contorted in her pain, a whole different form of vulnerability he didn't like so much. He apologized by kissing the pointy little tip of her nose, then by planting a tender buss on her lips and waiting for the grimace to melt out of her features. Still, she hid her eyes away from him and screwed them shut. He missed them. Wanted them back. He kissed her little nose again, pecked it until she hummed—her way of telling him she accepted his apology. _

_ He cupped her breasts a bit gentler, and his hands were right, just right, just large enough to hold the loads of them entirely and feel how much heavier they were—still were. He passed his thumbs over her perked little buds and watched the way her lashes fluttered, reverently admiring and loving every ounce of her, loving how perfectly he filled her and how perfectly she filled him. He realized then that he couldn't live without her. Never. It was a fact he always knew, but having her there with him merely reminded him all over. She was his life. His everything. At this thought, his voice grew softer. At the sight of her, his fierce demeanor fell. _

_ His girl. Blushing roses and breathing out between her parted lips, she still had her eyes closed. She looked so gentle. So right. _

_ He felt himself crack open. _

_ Split right in half. _

_ His fingers swiped the hair away from her eyes. She couldn't see him, but he smiled at her all the same. _

_ He loved her. _

_ Everything was fine. _

_ "To do..." _

_ And then her eyes just bloomed right open, stunning, watching him, watching him watch her, hold her, feel her, cherish her. She gave him a look that was both happy and sad—one that he wouldn't be able to understand yet. And then his voice lowered to a whisper, a softer murmur that was pressed against her mouth and he finished telling her, "To you?" _

_ Her response was sweet and tender. She moved her lips to find his throat so she could kiss it, capture some beads of his sweat and taste them. Then she turned a lot more serious. Mikasa tasted the sweat and blood and tears to come and told him with no shame. _

_ "Kiss me." _

_ He leaned back. Looked at her. _

_ She'd opened her mouth to say more but Eren grabbed her face and kissed her long and hard. Kissed her until her moans were pouring into his mouth and he swallowed every single one of them, drank them down like they could quench him, end his thirst. Their tongues tied until they could savor what was left of one another in their mouths, taste the sweetness that lingered on his tongue and know that it was hers, find the vestiges of him on the swollen shapes of her lips and know they came from how she'd sucked him. She'd started moving her hips again, broken back to gasp for air, but he didn't let her catch her breath. He was too impatient. Wanted more of her. Wanted her too bad. _

_ The way every part of him ached for her that night—it was an ache he'd never felt before. Ravenous. A vital, primal need. It was as if part of him already knew what she would do to him, as if something had been warning him that his demise would surely come. Soon. She would kill him. Eren would perish by her hands. _

_ Days, months, even years later, he would look back on that night and realize that everything about her had told him. Even the way she breathed had confessed to him what she would do. Every drop of sweat hinted to her efforts, every gasp of his name suggested something more. She'd worn her plan out on her naked body for him to read and decipher. Maybe she'd even hoped that he would know, that he would figure out what she was plotting and try to stop her. But Eren was a fool. He ignored his intuition. He ignored it. The blithe, idiotic fool. How sad, pathetic. _

_ Humiliating. _

_ There had been something nagging him at the back of the head, simmering and bubbling. The truth. It nagged and it bubbled and it nagged. It shouted in the cracks of her skin and in the soft, titillating touches of her hands, the fervid clasping of her arms, the desperate way she held him as if he were her lifeline. Everything had warned him.  Everything. _

_ Still, he let it go. Paid no heed. _

_ Still, he held on to her. Held even tighter. _

_ He helped her in her rise, grabbed her in her fall, met her in the middle and fucked her like that until her nails were cutting into his back and she had him hissing, until he saw the tendons stretching in her neck and a warm cry spew out of her throat. He brought her close to him, held her so, so, so close to him that he could feel her pants hitting his skin, feel her heart racing as if it were his own and wonder if she could feel his just as evenly. He was safe, he was okay. He held her and he had her and everything was perfect, everything was fine. _

_ Everything was fine. _

_ He'd heard of homes having heartbeats once before. Heard poets speak of houses built from flesh and skin and bone—but only after having her, after feeling her life breathe itself right into his, could he really understand what those crazy blokes had meant. Homes were sometimes made of people. He knew. He knew, he knew, he knew. He knew Mikasa was his home. _

_ Home. _

_ Home. _

_ She was his home. _

_ There was nothing left anymore. Nothing left of him or her and nothing left to do but to exhaust each other. He offered all of him to her, she offered all of her to him, and together they sacrificed every last drop of their strength, so that perhaps one day they might need it in the future, and his arms would strengthen hers, and her legs would carry him forward, and one would live without the other. And life would inevitably go on. _

_ Time. It was merciless like that. _

_ Eren surrendered. He gave himself up, laid back down on the bed and watched the sweat trickle down her torso, shimmering like stars rolling down her skin, drops that landed on him as she rode him and watched him and told him to flip her on her back and— _

He's going. To fucking. Faint.

Mikasa chuckles quietly in front of him, still battling to control herself, still lost in her own head.

How much time has passed?

Seconds.

Just seconds.

He's going to faint.

This honestly can't get any worse. It can't it can't it can't.

But it does.

He's going mad.

She's still smiling.

He's so lost.

And she's smiling.

How is this happening?

He still can't breathe.

And she's perfectly fine. Perfectly, perfectly fine.

Suddenly, Eren's on his own. Mikasa fades to nothing right before him. To nothing.

Nothing.

The images come.

They finish him off.

They finish him.

_ They switched. _

_ Him on top, and he was gentle at first. But then she'd asked for more, asked for all of him. Desperately, fervently—begged. Her voice so raw against him, legs clenched so tight around him, holding on for dear life as she told him to give more, more, more. Harder, faster. He'd had her gasping his name between her cries. Had her wrapping all her strength around him, clawing at his flesh and sparking fire. She trapped him and pulled him and pushed him in more and told him to finish, with the last drop of her will, told him to "come inside me". Nails dragged across his skin profusely, marking him, scratch marks she'd carved deep into his flesh—tattoos that left him bleeding. Empty. Spent. _

_ Falling asleep to the drum within her chest. Their song. Loud and playful was their lullaby. _

_ And then waking up. _

_ All alone. _

_ To find nothing. _

_ No note, no letter. No long, written-out goodbye. The air to have grown drier. Her promise to reverberate, to cling to every sliver of their home. It whispered. It remained. _

_ It shattered. _

_ It broke. _

_ The pieces fell around it to reveal a new, inexorable fact: She's missing. _

_ The empty space beside him on the bed screamed. The ghostly fragments of her voice blew up in his ears like an explosive, steaming and blazing with the final image of her consuming him in flames—that was his new, sudden reality. That was his new life. _

_ Eren burned in his rage, in his fire, drowned to ashes and to shame. Burning. Burning. Dying out. _

_ Slowly, slowly. _

_ Dying. _

_ Her promise, her always, still spun all around him. It pierced him. It choked him, cutting him. Eren cried. The devastation of his new reality, the embarrassment—it killed him. The sudden emptiness in his bed, in his hands, in his life—he was motionless. Bereft. Tears shone with defeat in his eyes. Surrender. They leaked out of them for years to follow. Endless. Endless, endless streams. _

_ A hole, blown right through him. _

_ Flowers, wilting in every garden. The colors never bloomed quite the same way again. _

_ The light, no longer there. It was switched off forever. _

_ The entire world looked different without her. _

_ He couldn't bear it. _

_ Eren cried. _

_ There were nail marks all over him, bloody imprints she'd left behind to scorch him. Her scent still soaked his bed—their bed—and every inch of his body. He'd scrub himself raw. He'd punch holes in walls because he could still taste her, still feel her on him and hear her in his dreams and feel like he still had her. He couldn't believe it. He ran. He ran and ran around to find her, but every forlorn streetlamp and naked house and empty corner and call sent straight to voicemail told him the inconsolable truth. _

_ She's gone. _

_ It's over. _

_ It's all over. _

_ Mikasa vanished. _

_ Into thin air. _

_ Vanished. _

_ Just like his family. Just like his friends. Just like everything else in his poor, pitiful life. Gone without a trace. Without a warning. Without an explanation. Why? Why? _

_ Why? _

_ Why did she leave him? _

_ Eren never called again. He didn't have to. Immediately, he knew. He knew Mikasa had left him. _

_ She left him. _

_ She killed him. _

_ She was gone. _

_ Gone. _

Gone.

"Eren."

He breathes. Finally, he breathes.

He's choking. Every part of him—choking. 

He feels like throwing up, like puking out the two cups of coffee that just recently made him twitch, that now churn like acid in his stomach. Light-headed, he clutches the edge of the island, standing clumsily on his feet. He feels like he just walked out of a nightmare, like he's been tossed and stirred and spewed right back out.

Fuck.

"Hey, Eren? Did you hear me?"

Despite the benevolence in her tone, Mikasa's voice is an abrupt burst to the bubble around him, the prick that pops the sphere and pulls him out.

His mouth opens, only to hang ajar. Useless. He feels his heart plummet at the sound of her words, then shoot right up to his throat once he forces himself to look up at her.

Mikasa.

The Girl.

It's taking all his courage not to snap his gaze away from her eyes. Big. Wide. Beautiful. Worried.

He can't bring himself to stare at them. The coward, he looks away.

_ Ba-dump. Ba-dump. _ His heart drums relentlessly.

_ Ba-dump. Ba-dump. _ Fuck, he's still dizzy.

"Did… Did you hear what I said?"

"What?" There's a buzzing in his ears. He can't really hear her. He can't meet her snowy, splendid face. He can't. He can't.

Coward.

"I said I don't understand why you're having a second cup of coffee," the girl scoffs, eyes all crescent-shaped and smiling, oblivious to what's happening to him. "You know how your body gets."

Her voice is a specter, slithering its way into his ears.

Turning into pants.

To moans.

To breathless cries of _ Eren. _

Ghosts.

All of them dead. All of them phantoms.

Ghosts.

He wants to shut her off and run, to save himself from her firm, throttling hold, from the looming doom of his cracking fortitude. "I don't know either," he breathes in response, and the girl just shakes her head, still smiling, still perfect, still dazzling and inexplicably right. Still everything he's ever wanted, everything he'll ever need.

Everything he'll never have again.

In that instant, Eren's struck with just how much she's changed. He'd thought with delight of all the things about her that still remained. But now he sees. Now he knows that all the things he thought were still there, in front of him, they were all just in his head. He'd made it all up. Fathomed it. He clung to those things in hopes of finding fragments of himself still held inside. Selfish. Always so damn, fucking selfish. Blithe, idiotic fool. But there's nothing. No old, ancient Mikasa, no girl with the currants and raspberry scent, no girl except for the one who's changed completely. The one that's engaged now. A woman. A bride-to-be.

She'll never be that girl from his past again.

Never.

Just look at her.

Never.

The thoughts break his fucking heart to shreds. He can't even live with himself right now. He wants to run. Hide. Just disappear entirely.

It hurts. It hurts to be with her.

It hurts to have Mikasa in his home.

Everything hurts.

In front of him, she sighs again, that long, drawn-out  _ "haaaahhhhh" _ that makes his mouth water. She tucks a few strands of hair behind her ears, still regaining her composure from her previous little giggle frenzy. Eren can't stop looking at her. Even though she's so different now and so thin and odd and lanky… She's still mesmerizing. She's flawless. Unreachable. Untouched.

Oh, my God.

Eren wants to cry. She still takes all his breath away and there is just no other way to cope with it. He wants to fucking cry.

"Eren..." Her voice, all of a sudden, is heavy. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to laugh."

"What?" 

"I've—" She bites her lip, looking to the sides. At that second, Eren bolts awake.

"No, no. Please. Don't be sorry." He tries to force a smile, to assure her he's alright. He doesn't know if he's accomplished a believable one, but he does manage to achieve a mildness to his tone. "Why would I be mad at you for laughing? Really?"

Mikasa drops her gaze, unwilling to meet him. "I don't know..."

He gives her a look that tells her she's being ridiculous, and she laughs, again, her voice seeping sweetly like honey pouring from her mouth.

It fucking stings.

Eren’s heart aches at the sight of her, at her presence. At her air.

And Mikasa… so clueless, so unaware.

And now suddenly his eyes…they look so sad. That same look they'd worn that night when she ran into him—like they've seen too much. There's no flashy, toothy grin to contradict her thoughts. Only his sullen look, that foreign crease resurfacing the skin just between his eyebrows. 

She doesn't know he seethes at the thought that he'd once lived a better life, a life where she was his, where there weren't questions, only answers. Only him and her and the promise that no matter what, they would always have each other. If one thing was certain in the world, it was that Mikasa would always be with him. Forever. A funny word, that. Forever. Six years ago, it had held the entire world.

But now look at them.

Look at what they have become.

She's apologizing over everything, over simply being her. He's fretting for her presence, finding frantic ways to keep her by his side. Then being haunted by those memories, by that stupid, useless night. When whispers of his name had filled her throat and the only words uttered in their absence were broken, fucked up promises. Soft litanies that told him he was safe, that he would always be, as long as he was with her. Always. Always.

_ Always, Eren. I will always be with you. _

Mikasa smiles softly. 

Eren still wants to puke.

"I guess you're right," she says. He's almost forgotten what they were even talking about. He's reminded when honey seeps out of her mouth in the form of laughter again, though.

Eren sighs, sounding very depleted. The dull sting of her sweet laughter ignites.

He burns.

Nothing makes any sense anymore. Not to him, not to her. She's aloof, lost to what he's feeling. And he's exhausted, so exhausted now. So worn.

How has he been able to cope with her presence this far? How has he managed to be near her? How has he been able to even look at her? How?

How has every word that's come out of her mouth not betrayed him and turned into I love you's or I want you's or to jagged, crooked spikes of always? How has he been able to look at her in the eyes and not see those glassed, abyssal orbs that had loved him? How has he been able to see her without immediately wanting to run for his life or, even more, hate her for moving on with hers?

Does she not look at him and see it too? Does she not see his face and recall what he must've looked like sleeping, vulnerable, utterly ignorant of her actions as she slithered out the door and out of his life? Do her hands still shake from where they'd ripped his heart right out of him? Feel his muscles beneath her fingertips the way she'd memorized so well? Does her body not yearn for his warmth? Does she not mourn over the empty spaces only he can fill? Does she breathe his air and automatically remember:

She'd ripped him apart.

Killed him.

How is she so comfortable with that? So fine? Just look at her. She's so perfectly, damnably fine with it. With everything. So perfectly, damnably fine.

It's all so cruel. Eren doesn't even know how he's still standing, looking at her without immediately perishing on sight. How are they both, after so much tragedy, still here?

The hole blown through him bleeds in his agony. He feels his insides collapse. Still, the structure of his bones holds him up. Sturdy, Eren looks at her. He talks.

"Besides," he finds the strength to say, "I like it when you laugh like that. You should do it more often."

Mikasa doesn't reply. Instead, she blinks, blushes, lets her eyes linger on the smirk that curves his lips. But then there's nothing. No dimple. No pearly teeth. No incandescent shimmer. He doesn't look so young anymore. Suddenly, Eren looks older. Spent.

Empty.

Mikasa wishes there were still some hot chocolate left. There's nothing for her to hide her face in when she dares herself to ask, "Are you sure you're okay?"

He looks at her. His eyes are tired. A hazy, pale shade of green.

She can't see the stars in them anymore.

She takes in a breath.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost, Eren."

"Huh?"

"I mean, you look… I don't know."

"Oh." There's the scratchy noise of nails on whiskers as he scratches his cheek. He looks down, still worn out, like the coffee had the complete opposite effect of what it should have. "No. Trust me, Mikasa, I'm alright."

"You sure?"

"Yep."

"Okaaaayyy," she sings, dipping her head to catch his gaze. "Don't lie to me."

Despite himself, Eren smiles. "Trust me, I'm not."

"Okaayyyy," she carols again, and fuck everything to hell for the way she makes him smile again.

He peers down at the coffee that still drips off his hand and scoffs. "I can't believe you thought me twitching was that funny."

"Oh, it was hilarious."

"It really wasn't."

"I beg to differ."

"Nope. You're just weird."

"Oh-ho! I'm weird?"

"You're the complete epitome of—"

Another spasm. It cuts him short.

Mikasa bites her lips into her mouth, trying not to giggle. Frowning. Genuinely concerned.

"Okay." The breath that leaves his lips is short. "I think I'm done with this now." He points to the mug in front of her. "Are you done?"

Mikasa nods gingerly, the traces of her amusement still tightening her lips. "Mhm!"

"Good." He takes the mug and walks over to the sink, where he drops everything inside and runs his coffee-soaked hand under some water. He eyes the faint, sticky stain of her lip gloss on the rim, right above Totoro's gray ears, which make it look like he's got a pink clumpy halo above his big fat head. The stain is small, painted on by the tippy-top of her mouth and the pert, puckered edge of her lower lip. It's so cute and tiny. He snorts to himself because of it, feeling better—just a tiny bit, but better altogether. It's funny how the same person that tears you apart is the one that puts you back together again.

"So…" Her voice is a timid squeak behind him. "How long have you been with your, um, your girlfriend?"

At that, Eren takes a deep breath..

"Four years."

"Oh, wow."

"Yeah. On-and-off"

He doesn't see that she's wringing her hands together. Nervous. "And I'm guessing that it's... 'off' now..."

Eren turns around, reaching for the can of whipped cream in front of her. Her hands cease their nervous dance when he answers, "Correct."

"Oh." And his eyes leave hers as he turns around to open the refrigerator. Mikasa sees him stick the can between a half-empty jar of mayonnaise and a glass bottle of ketchup. He lingers, perusing the contents of his own fridge, looking for something to eat, it seems.

Selflessly, she breathes, "...Hence the Hitch."

Eren nods, agreeing, even smiling a little. "Hence the Hitch."

Well, at least that clears up the whole cheating assumption.

But still...

"What's she like?"

He straightens, turns around, looks at her. "My girlfriend?"

Suddenly, it's become much harder to talk.  _ You shouldn't be asking these questions, Mikasa. You know you shouldn't be meddl— _

"Yes."

"Um, well..." Eren stares out the window for a moment, squinting his eyes as if the whiteness of the world outside were blinding him. "Blonde. Blue eyes. Short. Very pretty."

"Of course." She doesn't even catch herself saying this. When she does though, she looks up at him, curious to see his face. But he doesn't react at all. He just turns right back around to stare at the contents of his fridge, almost apathetically, snaking a hand beneath his shirt to rub his stomach whilst he decides on what to eat.

A sliver of his skin is bared for her to see as his shirt pulls up to expose the side of his hipbone, caramel muscles on his lower abdomen taut and ridged, stretched over his stomach as he runs his hand up and down the—

This is the part where Mikasa rips her gaze away. Quite desperately.

"What to eat, what to eat," Eren mumbles, and after he plucks out a can of some sort of sour cream dip, he swiftly turns around to face her, to ask, "And yours?"

Mikasa's eyebrows knit together. "My what?"

There's that little smirk again. Barely there. Barely noticeable. "Your fiancé." He sets the dip on the island before ripping off some paper towel rectangles to drop them over the mess of coffee on the floor, letting it soak up the liquid as he digs through the kitchen cabinets and produces a large family-sized bag of chips. Mikasa fixes her gaze on him, waiting for him to return to his spot in front of her so she can speak.

"Well," she says, staring at his hands as they rip the bag open, "you want me to describe him to you?"

"If you want."

"Um..." She takes a deep breath, eyes following his movements as he plucks out a chip as shoves it into his mouth. There's the loud crunch of his teeth breaking into the thing. He's watching her. Watching her watch him.

That's her cue to keep on talking.

"Well, he's tall. Very, very tall. Makes me feel tiny."— _ kinda like how you do _ —"And uh… let's see. He's my age"— _ and yours _ —"'s got slightly tannish skin"— _ but yours is tanner _ —"and these intense, sharp eyes"— _ that sometimes remind me of you _ —"that are light-brown... sometimes gold, if the light hits them the right way. And, um, he's got ash-brown hair, he's handsome—"

"Of course."

She purses her lips, rolling her eyes at his comment. Eren smiles, shoving another chip into his mouth before twisting the lid off the sour cream dip.

Mikasa scoffs, smoothing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"You're eating chips?"

Eren swallows, furrowing his brows. "What's wrong with that?"

"Chips and coffee for breakfast," is her deadpan. She's judging him.

"Oh. Hah. Ye-up." He lifts up the bag, turning the gaping intrusion he made into it her way so that she's hit with a whiff of the salt-soaked, deep-fried, high-cholesterol hazard held within. "You want some?"

She wrinkles her little nose. "No, thanks."

Another shrug. Another chip shoved into his mouth. "Alrigh, shuit yourshelff."

"It's good to know you're still eating healthy, Eren."

But he mustn't heard her. He gives her a look that indicates he's still waiting for her to talk.

Oh. Right. Her fiancé.

"And, ah… well, he's smart. Like, really, really smart. He's to inherit his father's company very soon, actually."

Eren nods, shoveling a chip into the dip, breaking it in the process. "Impressive."

"Yeah."

"That would explain why he's working on a Sunday, then." He's trying to retrieve the broken pieces with another one. It isn't working.

Mikasa sighs, watching him struggle in the endeavor. "Right."

"And how is he with you?"

She's quiet for a moment, knowing that the question should make her feel uncomfortable—and normally, it would. But Eren's voice is so calm, so clear. She can't help it when she selflessly replies: "He's very kind and patient, always gentle with me. We've never fought. Never. Not even once."

Eren nods again, successfully retrieving the broken pieces of his chip. "Well, that's good."

"I guess."

A small twitch courses through his body, milder than the first few, but still powerful enough to make him shiver.

Mikasa snorts, shaking her head, and then they both breathe out a laugh simultaneously, giggling at his body's incapacity to contain copious amounts of caffeine. There's that puny dimple forming at the corner of his mouth as he works another chip into the dip. He's smiling. Genuinely, now.

He looks at her, asks, "How'd you meet?"

Mikasa sighs, "Well, it's kind of a long story."

Eren's answer to that is simple. "I got time."

This makes her smile faintly. She digs a hand into the bag of chips, fishing out two little crisps. "It was about two years ago, back when he was in college. I was sitting alone on a bench eating chips"—she holds up the two crisps in her hand, which Eren acknowledges with a nod—"and reading when he sat next to me and did something that caught my attention."

"Which was...?"

"He started quoting passages straight out of my book. Like, from his memory. Somehow, he managed to see what page I was on and he just summoned from his brain the very words I was reading right in front of me. It was unreal."

Eren takes in a very deep breath, his chest bloating like he's about to say something immense.

"Wow."

That's it. That's all that comes out of him.

Mikasa nods her head, staring at the chips in her hand. "Mhm. Then he said he'd never seen anyone like me before, and that he couldn't understand how I managed to make something as simple as reading a book seem so breathtaking." She smiles, mostly to herself. "And that if he let me walk away without at least knowing my name, that he wouldn't be able to live with himself for the rest of his life."

Eren cocks a brow, chewing, droning, "Wow. He sounds like quite the charmer."

"Oh, he can be. When he wants to be, anyway."

"And what book were you reading?"

"Um—"

"Let me guess…  _ Illusions _ ?"

She shovels the chips into the dip, pouting. "Yes."

Eren chortles loudly, thoroughly pleased with himself. "Ha! I knew it."

"I mean, it's only the one book I've read about fifty times."

"Yeah," he clucks. "Only fifty times."

"Be quiet."

"Do you still have it?"

"The book?"

Eren rolls his eyes. "Nah, Mikasa, the bag of chips you were eating."

"No, I don't," she answers calmly, bringing the chips to her mouth. She makes sure to swallow her food before she speaks again. "And I don't have the book either."

Eren smiles at her deadpan humor, his grin stretching even wider once he sees her absent-mindedly sucking the salt off of her fingertips. Ohhh, Mikasa.

"And why not?" he asks her, leaning in a bit closer.

She holds her breath. Tries not to smell him.

"I left it behind when I moved," she says, nodding at his dramatic gasp of "what?!"

"Yeah." And she's still holding her breath. "I know."

"But—" She half expects him to hold a hand to his chest when he accuses, "Why would you do such a thing?"

She sighs briefly, lamenting herself, swallowing a gulp of earthy, citrusy him. She reaches over for another chip as she says, "I'm still asking myself that same question."

There's a jolt. Then another. Mild shocks that wash through him like waves.

"Oh my God, Eren," the girl laughs. "When will it stop?"

He shrugs helplessly, throwing his hands up and making an 'I dunno' sound in his throat.

It makes her laugh again.

(God, he fucking loves that sound.)

"Are you still dancing?" Eren asks her, looking into her eyes, his golden stars flickering as he sneaks a hand into the bag right after her, bag rustling around his sifting fingers.

Her gaze falls, snapping free of his, staring at the island between them. She thinks she sees the little stars twinkling over the counter top, as if they stuck to her own vision and she stole them away from him. "Nope. I don't want to anymore."

Eren pulls out a handful of chips, tilting his head back to throw them into his mouth. He's quiet for a moment, chewing, staring into space. Then, suddenly:

"Wai, fwap?!"

Crumbs go flying off his mouth and land over the island. Mikasa makes a face, the chip she was about to shove into her mouth stopping mid-air.

"Please, Eren," she begs. "Swallow first."

He mumbles imperceptibly, cradling a hand beneath his chin. Half of her suspects he'll spit his food right out on his hand to yell at her, but he doesn't. He chews for a few more seconds, closing his eyes, frowning, nostrils flaring in his frustration and Mikasa prays he doesn't choke.

After swallowing, he takes in a breath, cleans his mouth, slaps his hands on the island, looks at her—and there's that ghastly expression on his face again, like she's punched him in the face or something.

He questions, "Why not?"

She answers, "It's complicated."

And Eren spits a curse under his breath. "Bullshit."

Mikasa's eyes grow wide, taken aback. "I'm… I'm serious."

"But I don't understand," he hisses, shaking his head, running both hands down his face and groaning out of frustration. "I mean, Mikasa, dancing is your life."

At those words, the bubble of safe distance between them shakes, trembles that ripple through the thin coating of the sphere and threaten to pop it.

"Not anymore." She feels part of herself chip off at the declaration.

Eren seems to lose a little piece of himself too.

"But..." He's astonished. Betrayed. Flabbergasted, he exclaims, "But that's preposterous!"

"Eren..."

"I'm sorry, I just— I just don't believe that one bit."

Her face is expressionless, a sign that she's closing off, drawing back from the conversation. She closes her eyes, inhaling, feeling the bubble shake even more. "I told you. It's complicated."

"Still asking yourself that same question?" and his voice is milder now, almost challenging, but not quite so.

Hers, however, burgeons with distress.

Weeds that flourish, that latch onto her skin.

Scratching.

Itching.

Scathing.

The daunting wilt of an elegant rose.

She opens her eyes to look at him, and his are already fixed on her, staring right back all bright and fiery and so hot they melt the snowy expanse of her face. Funny how they seem to be that way now, since they were so muted just moments ago, so dead.

"No." Her voice is toneless. "I know why I'm not dancing."

"Tell me."

Her eyes close again, a weary breath passing through her. "Eren."

"Please? Come on, I'm worried here."

"Worried?" Onyx orbs slide open. They hold his face. "What? Why?"

"Because—" Eren stammers, realizing what he's just said. Embarrassed, he huffs, shaking his head, looking away from her. "Argh, never mind."

But Mikasa clings to his words. She parts her lips, the spot where the bead of hot chocolate had once been now gleaming with saliva. It glistens at the swift passing of her tongue. Her lip gloss's turned dry and icky, making her lips feel even more chapped than what they'd felt outside in the cold. She bites down on the lower petal of her rosy mouth before asking, "What do you mean you're worried?"

"Forget it."

And he still won't look at her. The melted snow on her face freezes over in the absence of his heat, and she feels a tinge of panic, mixing with the hot chocolate and chips within her belly in a way that makes her sick, the trembling of the bubble growing to tumultuous quakes.

"Eren."

"I said forget it, okay?"

"But—"

"Mikasa." He looks into her eyes, twinkling stars and everything. "Just let it go."

Pop.

There goes the bubble.

"Fine."

And then, there's silence.

And then, there's guilt.

It looms over them both. She feels she's disappointed him, he feels that he's disappointed her. He reacted out of bounds, alarmed her, made her coil away. She angered him, made him fret. Eren's sure she'll leave now, that he's surely pushed her out. He can almost hear his own words being hissed back at him, mocking, shaming him.  _ Bullshit. Forget it. _

_ I said forget it, okay? _

_ Mikasa. _

_ Let it go. _

Goddammit.

The more he thinks about it, the more he's absolutely certain she'll definitely call quits now. He didn't mean to react so impulsively but—just what the fuck?! Why isn't she still doing what she loves? Her only passion? And saying that she doesn't want to anymore? That's just so unfathomable! She's only twenty-five! It's too early for her to reti—

It's none of his business.

She's none of your business, Eren.

He knows that.

…

…

Ugh, fuck.

He's such an idiot. He wishes he knew how to control himself, measure the large quantities of his emotions and spurt them out in fractions, not all at once. He can already hear it: the screech of wood on wood, the click of her heels upon his floor, the loud pang of the front door slamming shut, a boom that reso—

"It's just life."

One of them speaks.

Eren raises his head.

He realizes it's Mikasa.

"Life." A sigh, her shrunken chest deflating, a chip thrown into her mouth, the muted crunch of her chewing until she swallows. "That's why I'm not dancing, Eren. Marriage, moving to a whole new place… it's all too much right now."

He shakes his head, looking pained. "But dancing's your life, Mikasa. You love it. You always have. You love it so much."

And this is where they're both completely different: when pressed with heat, Eren sizzles and boils.

Mikasa, however, turns to ice.

"Yeah, well, I don't know what to tell you," she says, emotionless, cold. "I'm not dancing right now, and that's that."

"Alright," and he tries to give his best impersonation of apathy, certain that he's failed.

Mikasa grows quiet, very quiet, stares out the window, and he doesn't see the snowflakes reflected in her irises this time, doesn't see them landing over the inky waters of her pools, forming ripples before fading.

Her eyes look sad and hollow, and even though the rest of her expression is carved from frigid stone, she's always had the disadvantage of possessing mirrors on her face, two windows that allow a peek to what's happening inside. She blinks once, twice, and Eren realizes he's counting. He realizes he's peeking, searching for glimpses of the old Mikasa—his Mikasa—still painted on her face. And he knows he shouldn't do it. And he knows he's such a fool. And for that, just that, he does it anyway.

There's salt dusted on her fingertips, some even on her nails, and she doesn't bring them to her mouth this time, doesn't bother to clean it off. Because her mind now travels elsewhere. Away from her. Away from him. Away from everything. She thinks, she goes, she wanders.

She wilts.

She withers.

The resplendent rose.

She wanes.

Eren wonders even more what she must feel like, how the salt on her hands might taste, how lightly her weight could settle in his arms if only he reached out and held her. And the awnings that hang over her eyes flutter wistfully as she blinks, like little butterflies preparing to take flight and leave her. And he's never felt so far away from her before—he has her right here, and yet she feels so far away from him. She desserts him, and his insides swelter at the notion that this human being was once his, a permanent extension of his own being. And he can't understand how it is that he once had his whole world splayed open right in front of him, blooming at the palms of his hands, shaking and gasping and breathing life and essence. He was so certain, so sure. Everything about the world reminded him that he was set for life because he had her—the birds, the trees, the fluffy clouds in the sky. They all made sense. Everything made sense because of her. But yet life would play him a cruel trick, a black hole would suck in everything, eradicate all traces of his home, his love, his life. He'd be forced to live without her, to learn how to breathe anew. Because the oxygen never flowed into his lungs the same way again. He was always choking on his words since talking seemed pointless if uttering her name was no longer allowed; speaking became absurd if it wasn't to talk about her, to mention her in passing. He'd have to re-learn everything without her because everything had changed. Even walking became different. What once were brisk, peppy steps now dragged along, one foot after the other, the effort of formality no longer present in his gait.

But now, here she is.

Quiet, thinking, peeved at him—already. And he loves that she makes him nervous, and he loves that he makes her mad. He loves that when he's with her, he can feel things, he can feel, he can be—somehow, just somehow, he can. He doesn't really understand it, it's not something a man like him would ever be able to explain, but she's killed him so many times before and yet she's the only person who makes him feel like he's truly living.

And he knows, with every part of him, he knows:

_ I'm going to have to let her go again. _

'Cause now the petals are falling off her, one by one, the remainder closing off into a bud and shriveling into herself. And she's the resplendent rose that sometimes withers, and he's just a weed that will never be anything more. And Eren feels so useless, so incompetent, because there's nothing he can do.

He's gonna have to let her go again.

_ "Fiancé?" _

_ "Yeah, I'm getting married in a few weeks." _

_ "That's wonderful!" _

A lie.

_ "Thank you." _

And then the sky had crashed upon him.

_ "I'm very happy." _

Very happy.

Very happy without him.

This fiancé of hers, this… man. Does he have the same girl Eren once had? Does she whisper his name into his shoulders and let him kiss her eyes to sleep? Does she make promises to him, like she'd done to Eren? Does she love him just as ardently, with just as much, with equal amounts of herself poured into every move, every phrase, every clasp of her arms and arch of her back and sputtered words left steaming on her tongue?

She's so deep into her thoughts, she's not even blinking anymore.

As Eren reaches over to pluck another chip out of the bag, he tries very hard not to touch her. He doesn't dare. He scoops up some of the dip. She's still entranced.

He doesn't dare.

And yet he feels her anyway.

Grinding up against his hand, planting kisses down his body, wrapping herself around him with her smiles, with her legs, with everything she has. And Eren knows he's fucked, big time, because he's just violated every rule on his list of Acceptable Things To Do Around Mikasa. He's already felt her all over him, and she hasn't moved an inch. He's already heard her breathe his name into his ear, and she hasn't even spoken. He's already jumped three steps before her fiancé, and he's never even met the man.

He finds some strange kind of solace in knowing that he's taken things from her that her new husband will never have. Like her first kiss, her first date, her first slow dance, her first ballet, her first skinny dip, her first favorite book, her first I love you, her first fuck, her first  _ will you marry me? _ , her first _ I do _ , her first always, her first—

" **AAAND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII—!!!!!!!!"**

"Ah!"

"Jesus!"

Yelps, jumping hands scurrying for the vibrations in her purse, Eren's sour-cream-dipped chip flying off his hand and landing down his stomach.

"— **WILL ALWAYS LOOOVE YOOOOOOUUU!!!!!!"**

"I-I'm sorry!"

"What the fuck?"

" **OOH OOH OOH OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"**

"Sorry, sorry." Eren's clutching his chest, trying to keep his soul from leaving his body as Mikasa pants, rummaging through her purse, frenzied. "It's just"—her face turns pale once she holds the belting iPhone to her face—"my cell."

They both look at one another.

"Him?"

She nods.

He does, too.

Whitney Houston still screams the anthem of Satan through her ringtone, the phone reverberating furiously in Mikasa's hand.

Or is she shaking?

She looks terrified.

They both glance down at the streak of sour cream on his shirt.

Eren looks back up at her.

She  _ is _ terrified.

"I'll be back," he breathes.

She nods again, holding the phone against her chest, mouthing out a _ sorry _ .

He mouths back,  _ it's okay. _

And then he goes.

She speaks.

Whitney Houston stops singing.

"Hello?"

_ "Heeeeeeeeeeey, Baby!" _

"Jean."

Those are the last three things Eren hears before going into his bedroom.

The hinges creak and he contemplates closing the door entirely, but Mikasa's chirpy voice slips in through the thin space between the wall and the door, so he settles for looking at her, for peeking through the crack.

"Really?" Her back's to him, and her shoulders seem so tense, Eren feels his own muscles cramping. "Oh. Well, that's nice."

Silence.

"I'm okay. Yeah."

Silence, again.

"Nothing, really." She doesn't move at all. Eren wonders if she's even breathing. "Just cleaned, fed Jiji, ate some toast. Yup. That's it." She's talking about her day, of course.

Eren isn't mentioned.

He wonders, though, if perhaps a trace of him leaks out her words, sodding them in his presence.

_ I'm in someone else's home. Without you. Laughing. Talking. Getting mad. _

That's what Eren hears. It's what he hears instead of:

"I miss you too."

He closes his eyes.

Tries not to feel it.

The sting. Ignore it. Ignore the pain.

"You are?" Suddenly, she sounds amused. He hears the happiness in her words, the way her murmurs take flight into gentle exclamations. "Really? Oh. Oh?"

And then she laughs. A brief, flaccid chuckle, a different kind of laughter than the one she graces around him.

"Well maybe you should stop buying Pringles, ever thought of that?"

She laughs again.

That foreign laugh.

Eren steps away from the door, turning his back to it, gazing into his own room, which now suddenly feels as strange to him as if it were someone else's. He still smells Hitch all over the place. He still smells Mikasa.

"No, he didn't." Her tone is soft. Like she's made entirely of clouds. Eren sighs, wet under the drizzle of her breathy voice, drenched in the downpour of her laughter.

"I mean, at least not while I was there. I just fed him, is all."

Suddenly, the man's voice bursts into the apartment.

_ " _ **_Well, I'm just saying—"_ **

Mikasa frets, hissing. "Shoot!"

Eren turns to peek through the door, watching as her fingers clamber along the phone's touch-screen. He hears the man's deep, musical drone, tilting with amusement as he talks to his future wife.

_ "— _ **_if he gets his head stuck in one of those Pringles tubes again I'm just gonna have to—"_ **

It's gone.

Mikasa runs a hand down her face, sitting up straighter, pressing the phone to her ear and blowing out through her nose.

Eren watches her.

_ Ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump. _

Why is his heart beating so fast?

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just… I pressed the speaker button with my cheek."

She laughs a breath.

Eren does, too.

"Well, I'm still new to these types of phones."

"Flip-phones," Eren whispers. That's what she always used to own. Flip-phones.

And then she's silent for a long while, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, listening to her fiancé talk.

Eren imagines his voice, recalling it from memory. Strong and gruff, but yet laced with all the kindness in the world.

Maybe he really is as gentle with Mikasa as she says he is.

"Mhm. Yeah."

Eren listens to her, absorbing her voice, her words, every intake of air before her sentences. Her tone is milder, more mellow. Different.

He doesn't realize he's closed his eyes again, pressed his back to the wall, drowned in every "yes" and "no" she utters. Her answers are all short. They're all simple, spoken with the comfort of knowing someone for a long time.

"Yeah, okay. See you there."

Eren's gaze focuses on nothing in particular, his own bed a blurry hint behind the hazy gloom of everything.

"By— What? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."

A pause.

"Oh. Yeah. Ye— Oh, my God."

Another one.

"Okay. I love you too."

_ "Mikasa." _ The man's voice rips slits into his ears. Eren hears him, and the phone's not even set on the speaker setting anymore. He holds on to the way he says her name: how the 'm' lulls on for a second, the absence of the 'i', the sharp slap of the 'k', the drawn out 'a' that's snipped in half by a hiss...

"Hmm?"

_ Okay. I love you too. _

"What."

_ I love you too. _

"I know."

It echoes, it echoes.

"Okay. Bye."

_ I love you too. I love you too.  _ **_I love you—_ **

"Eren?"

He gasps.

Shit!

"Yeah!" He pulls his T-shirt over his head, careful not to get any of the dip on himself as he dashes through his bedroom. "I just— Hold on."

A whisper. "'Kay."

The screech of wood on wood.

The click of her heels upon his floor.

Mikasa's leaving.

Eren slides his closet door open, plucking out the first hooded sweater to catch his eye, hurling his dirty T-shirt to the side and seeing it land right beside the trash can where he disposed of Hitch's neon undies (she'll gut him, but it's what she gets for trying to torture him). He works himself into the hoodie, nearly tripping over his own two feet as he scrambles to the door, whence he finally takes a deep breath, skims a hand through his messy hair, opens it, and goes out.

"Hey," is the first thing Mikasa says when she sees him.

And now, she stands.

A spacious gap between her thighs.

A tendril of hair fallen over her face.

Her bun slightly loosened.

Eren's toilsome eyes straining to hold still.

"Hey. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I..." She's quiet for a second, running her hands down her jeans, Eren feeling like his eyes are about to pop out of his face and roll onto the floor. "He's uh… He's on his way home."

"Oh?"

"I know." She shrugs, her shoulders going up so high they nearly press against her diamond earrings. "He just… I don't know. He managed to get out early."

"That's great!" There's a crack in his voice. 

"Yeah." She takes in a long breath, her lungs inflating widely, and Eren spots the curved shape of her bra's underwire beneath her top. "Anyways, I should go now."

The space between them shrinks, but somehow, it feels like it's only gotten bigger.

"Make the best of it," Eren tells her, walking towards her as she makes her way to the door.

Mikasa shakes her head incredulously, wrapping his crimson scarf around her neck before lifting her coat off the hanger. "I'm telling you, it's a miracle. He never—" She stops herself, looks up at him, sighs. "Well, you wouldn't care to know."

"Really," he smirks, slipping his hands into his pockets. "You underestimate me."

And the smile on her face is so damn worth it, the scent on her coat is so damn strange, the way she pushes her arms through the sleeves and shrugs her shoulders is so damn fascinating. She doesn't even bother to put on her gloves, instead just hooks her purse over her elbow, turning to him, and Eren wishes his front door would miraculously melt shut, or freeze over, or that the latch would break and lock them both inside forever so that she never leaves him again.

"Thank you, Eren," she whispers, scratching the corner of her mouth. He wonders if the salt still sticks to her fingertips. "For the hot chocolate. For the chips."

He rings his hand around the doorknob, praying that it doesn't work. "It's no problem."

"I'm sorry I laughed at you."

"Stop."

"And made you smear sour cream dip all over your shirt."

"You see, now that," he makes a face, crinkling his nose, "not sure I'll ever forgive you."

A smile. "Oh, no."

A solemn nod. "It's my favorite shirt."

And then there's a long beat, and echoing twang of silence. He doesn't move his hand—not yet—reluctance glues his fingers to the doorknob.

Mikasa seems to want to tell him something. Eren ponders what else to say.

But neither of them say anything.

"Okay, time to go," she breathes out eventually, perking up like a little girl.

Eren tests the knob. It opens.

God is cruel.

"Time to go," he echoes, knowing he should've put a lot more effort into sounding less disappointed.

Promptly, the girl slinks her way out of his apartment, her scent burning in his nostrils and he still can't recognize it at all. Once outside, she turns around to face him, and Eren thinks he feels his heart droop a little, sagging like a sad tree, withering like drying leaves in autumn.

He stands still, looking down at her, thinking of ways to make her stay.

She stands straight, looking up at him, thinking of how to say goodbye.

"Ah, wait!" Eren blurts out suddenly, turning to find some shoes. "Hold on, I'll walk you to the door."

"No, no," she's quick to object. "Really. I have to run."

"Yeah, but—"

"Eren. Please. Just..." She screws her eyes shut, bouncing slightly. "No."

"…Okay." His arms drop to his sides, defeated.

Mikasa gives him a look that says she's thankful for his effort—and there's that presence again, that air. That whisper that says,  _ go on, say something to him. Tell him you'll come back, that you'll see him, to wait for you, to wait. _

But she ignores it.

Jean is on his way home right now. Jean. On his way home. Jean.

It's time to go.

"Okay, have a good—WAIT!"

She half-turns to walk away but whips right back around to extend her hand—palm up—and hold it out to Eren.

He looks down at it. What, does she want him to grab it?

"My pen."

Oh. Right. Of course.

"Shit, hold on," and he races to his bedroom. Mikasa cranes her neck, taking a peek inside, watching him slip in through the door, the discombobulated bed sheets carrying a whole new meaning now that she knows so much about his love life. She tries not to think of the fact that Hitch's apartment door is right behind her, capable of swinging open at any time and exposing her to the sight of hickeys, rumpled blouses, sex-tousled hair, scorching eyes from hell that melt right through her. 

She hears the opening and closing of drawers, the roving of his hands through paper, the exasperated “fuck” he spits under his breath as he searches through his stuff. She smirks, thinking of how nice he looks in that hoodie he's wearing now. Green. Like his eyes. The color certainly suits him. It's a good thing he's been wearing it all day because—

Wait, what? No. No, she did not just think that. Ha. Whoa.

Mikasa coughs.

Finally, Eren shows up. He's got her pen in his right hand, a small book in the other, and a shit-eating grin on his face. "Here you go," he says, slightly out of breath, offering her all three things.

Mikasa peers down at his hands, retrieving the items, gawking at the small book—and suddenly, something flutters to life inside of her, an old, burnt-out ember bursts to flames. She's hit with the familiarity of it: a single blue feather poised amid a the center of the cover, a faint trail of glinting stars gathered around it. She knows this book. Her eyes dart around the images, absorbing every tiny, glimmering dot—shooting up to meet the ones that glimmer within Eren. His eyes shine with an odd sort of happiness once she meets his gaze, like he's happy, but not for himself; more like, happy for her. She's breathless when she speaks, knowing that she's read the bolded lettering correctly but still asking, "What's this?"

"It's _ Illusions, _ " Eren smiles, running his fingers through his hair, pulling the strands away from his face. "Take it."

Mikasa's eyes grow enormous. "Eren." She shakes her head feverishly, holding the book out to give it back to him. "No, no, Eren, I can't."

"Don't be stupid. Just take it."

"But it's yours."

He moves a hand around in the air, swatting off her objections before they reach his ears. "I've got like five other copies. Please. Just take it."

"But you can't just give me your—"

"It's a book. Not my liver." He pushes her hands closer to her body, feeling the way she goes stiff under his touch. The contact only lasts a second, because then her eyes are on him, startled and amazing. His hands tingle where they'd touched her. Light-headed, he grins. "Merry Christmas."

She stands dumbfounded, staring at him, the raven lock of hair that's fallen over her face sticking to her lips as she blinks through her daze. "Uh..." She glances down at her hands, holding the book and pen firmly in her grasp. "Thank you," she whispers, looking back up at him, her eyes bubbling over with gratitude as she smooths the lock of hair behind her ear and turns such a pretty shade of pink that Eren thinks he's going to be on the verge of crying again. "I'll bring it back when I'm done."

"Sounds good to me." Perfect, actually. Sounds fucking perfect.

They stand in silence for a moment: Mikasa holding the book to her chest as if she were trying to melt it into herself and make it part of her, Eren staring at the scarf around her neck and at the rosiness of her face and bare knuckles and wondering what other more secretive parts of her might still be that—

Whoa-kay. Stop it right there, Eren Jaeger. Stop it.

"I had fun," she squeaks, pulling her purse up to her shoulder, and everything about her screams such a crude resemblance to his past that Eren has to swallow down the sudden lump that's lodged itself in his throat.

He chokes a little. "Me, too."

And he sees her, about to leave, sucking in a breath before talking again.

And time stops.

He hears her.

_ Always, Eren. _

_ I will always be with you. _

And then everything resumes again.

Time, time, time.

Always so merciless.

The bud sprouts to a bloom before he can even stop it. "Okay, I really have to go now. Merry Christmas!" She flourishes, dashing through the corridor, the sound of her heeled footsteps beating in his ears."See you soon!"

"Yep!"

And he's waving out a hand. She's giving him a smile over her shoulder.

And everything hurts. Everything hurts.

Everything hurts him.

She's already half-way down the stairway when he suddenly calls out her name.

"Oh, Mikasa?"

The footsteps comes to a halt, a quick six taps as she gallops up the stairs to be high enough to see him. She holds a hand to the railing, turning around to face him.

"Yeah?"

"Try not to break our front door this time, okay?"

The roll of her eyes is so severe, Eren fears she might've induced a headache. "Bye, Eren."

"Bye."

And then she's gone.

Just like that.

Gone.

He stands frozen for a moment, smacked across the face by the entirety of what's just occurred. The beating in his chest is so violent, he thinks his heart might just jump right off his chest and try to chase after her. His blood courses through him with such force, Eren fears he'll run out of it and plop back onto the ground and just, like, die.

That… just happened.

Mikasa was just here.

Mikasa.

Here.

The door slams shut.

A loud boom that resonates through his apartment as he flies over to the window in his room, peeling back a sliver of the curtain so that he can see outside.

Immediately, he sees her: body bobbing up and down as she walks, snowflakes falling gently all around her—and even from this angle, Eren can catch that distinct glide in her gait, the way her shoulders square, how her long legs stretch out underneath her, the way her hair's pulled up into that bun with the frilly fly-aways. And when she digs her fingers to meddle with the hairtie, a waterfall of obsidian tresses spills free. She's walked far enough now that Eren can hardly see her, and yet he catches the way her hair reaches all the way down to the center of her back, and then he's suddenly forgotten how to breathe entirely.

How many girls hasn't he confused for her before? Thinking that it was her walking right outside of his apartment, making her way to and fro. And now it is. And now it is her! It is, it is, it is!

She takes a turn down the street and vanishes from view entirely, his heart gasping at her abrupt absence.

That's it.

She's really gone now.

With a sigh, Eren traipses over to the living room, looking around, realizing how empty his own home feels without her. The whole damn place feels vacant now—even the air feels wrong. Like she's meant to be inside it all along. The places she'd touched, every surface and space she'd merely brushed against... they're all stained. Changed. Tainted. Different because she was there. She was there. In his presence, in his home, in his eyes.

There.

Her perfume lingers around him. Her voice echoes in his ears. Sweetly, endearingly, she echoes. She breathes. She laughs. She speaks. She talks to him.

_ "F-fuck, Eren." _

_ "What?" _

_ "Stop teasing me." _

Mikasa.

How has he managed to live these past few years without her?

_ "I hate you." _

_ "Say that again." _

_ "I. Hate. You." _

All his life, Eren's been the square peg in a round hole. Nothing's ever really made much sense to him. He's always been the odd one out. Always.

But with her, the opaqueness of his life bleeds forth into a sort of clarity.

But with her, the light pours in from the windows just the right way.

_ But with her, and only her, life makes a bit more sense. _

_ "I love you, though. I love you, Mikasa." _

_ "I do, too." _

The now-foreign air of his home pours into his lungs. He takes a deep breath, letting the scent of her perfume fill him.

Eren closes his eyes.

Sees her.

Her.

This time, he doesn't feel pain at the thought of her face, of her smile, at the fact that there's another man's engagement ring claiming her left hand. For once, he feels no sadness. He doesn't feel, doesn't hear, doesn't fret or freak or anything. He just is. Suddenly, Eren, he just is.

_ "Stay with me." _

_ "Always." _

As he opens his eyes again, he finds the spots in his apartment where Mikasa had just been. The island, his living room, his room. All of these are places he'd perished many times before. On all those different spots, he's woken up after nights he can't remember, with people whose faces he could never understand, missing his heart and his soul and some parts of his belongings. Empty. Empty, so empty. But now those spaces glow. They're pure and bright and pretty because she'd touched them. She'd made them change. Made them better. Made him happy.

What once was cruel is now so beautiful.

That's just what the world is like when she's with him.

The snow still falls outside, white and soft and perfect. He contemplates going over to Hitch to retrieve his phone, perhaps even tell her what just happened. She'd laugh. Tease him. Bust his behind for kicking her out the way he did earlier. He contemplates the rest of his day. What will he do now? Where will he go? What's in store for the rest of today?

But, honestly…

Who gives a shit anymore?

Truly, nothing else matters to him. There's no point. Life's still empty and pointless but now in a whole new way. How fucked up is that? It's like he's still the same shitty person—he knows he's still the same man—but somehow now he's better. Somehow now he's new.

Somehow now he smiles.

To himself, he smiles.

_ "Say that again." _

_ "Always, Eren. I will always be with you." _

Because maybe, just maybe, the girl never lied to him after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so baffled by the feedback I've been getting recently on tumblr and such. I mean, WOW. Your messages and reviews have made me grin so hard! Thank you guys so much! I give you all a gigantic group hug and a nice, wet, sloppy kiss. 
> 
> Second, lolakasa did some [fan art](http://lolakasa.tumblr.com/post/117472587434/adult-eren-for-the-grown-up-fangirls-3-no-im%0A) for Eren from last chapter. It's beautiful! 
> 
> Third, I want to talk about the smut scene ok. Everything is seen through his point of view, even the parts where we get to see Mikasa's thoughts, because it's all just conclusions he's come to from throughout the years after she left, and he's obsessed over that night and what every minuscule fragment of it meant. I'm sorry that I made the flashback come out as sputters of images and then suddenly its like BAM! BOOM! PORN! but like I said, it's all seen through his eyes, so he was probably just hit with the entirety of that night in one swift blow. I don't think he saw everything that happened, I think he just felt the entirety of it in one hard hit, and then it was pang after pang of pain as he felt himself sink deeper into his past.
> 
> Also, I've never written smut before until now. Haha. HA.
> 
> Finally, thank you for reading. See you next chapter and hopefully talk to you very soon! My [tumblr](http://natiwati.tumblr.com/) is always open, so don't ever be afraid to ask me anything if you ever want to talk.


	6. Once Upon a Time, I Met a Prince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we've progressed far enough into the story to start revealing past chapters now. These two go through a lot, so there will be plenty. We saw the very end, so now let's go back to the beginning.

They met when they were nine.

A mutual friend, Armin, had introduced them one summer afternoon. The wind had been thick. There was a density to it, a sort of weight. The type of foretelling in the atmosphere before the start of something new, something magnificent.

The hiss of the swaying trees spoke of such encounters, every turning leaf narrating the tales of queens and kings and how they stumbled upon each other on a day very much like this one. Something great was cooking. Something powerful was about to occur. The sun found its place in the sky, the clouds dispersed, nature arranged itself around them. Promises, promises. They trilled in the air.

Mikasa couldn't have known how to explain it, but she understood the mystical reality of it all. Emotions smoldered fervently within her, threatening to corrode the calm composure she'd imposed upon herself. But still, despite fateful turns of leaves and the resonating promises of the wind, she was just a girl, and in her mind dwelled merely fairytales. And fairytales, unfortunately, did not exist.

Even nine-year-old Mikasa was a skeptic.

Her hair stuck to her forehead, but she couldn't blame it on the humidity. She was nervous. Scared, really. Raven tendrils adhered to her skin with sweat.

She was a mess.

Surely, princesses didn't fret in this manner when meeting their future kings, now did they? Did they stammer and perspire? Did they shake and forget how to form words? As far as she knew, princesses always knew exactly what to say and how to act at all times.

Sadly, that wasn't the case with her at all that day. Mikasa had been very much afraid. And in her fear, she stammered, she doubted, she frayed. Her little tiara dwindled away.

Moving to a new town meant meeting new people, making new friends—something she certainly wasn't used to. Towns bustled with traffic and adults and squealing children and barking dogs. She was used to the tranquility of living in the woods, of fishing with Papa, of helping Mama with dishes and going to bed with the warm satisfaction of a full belly, accompanied by the incessant chirping of crickets and the occasional howl of a coyote or two. But she couldn't dance ballet in the woods, and Daddy's job started demanding more than just thrice-a-week visits. And thus, they moved. And thus, there she was.

Her future stretched wide before her, glistening with promise and excitement. But when she stood beside Armin that day, before a strange, foreign boy, his small shadow cast an enormous weight on her. Sweaty, and shaking, and forgetting how to speak, Mikasa longed for the safety of her old home, where trees were the only strangers she ever got to talk to. At least trees never judged her. At least trees never needed to be impressed.

She took a long, deep breath.

“Mikasa,” Armin said, flitting a hand between her and the boy, “this is my friend, Eren.”

Her dress danced in the wind. She held it down, willing the skirt still by gripping it tightly at the edges. The black polka-dots still moved around relentlessly. 

“Hello,” she voiced before swiping her bangs out of her face, quickly returning that hand down to her flowing dress to ensure its obedience. “It's really nice to meet you.” Her mother had taught her manners—and a good thing too, since she could rely on that for bureaucratic use of speech. She couldn't help feeling a bit proud of herself for the accomplishment. Trees, suddenly, were no longer enticing friends.

The boy, however, took a while to reply. He blinked slowly, squinting his eyes, gauging her existence as if he were making her out through a tactless blur.

She, too, stared at him.

His expression bemused her—not to mention that it made her that much more insecure. His brows came together in a frown, gaze piercing straight through her in a way that made her her own drop down to his knees, where she saw scrapes, dried-up blood, a grubby band-aid clinging (just barely) to his left shin. He was, in every sense of the word, strange.

Armin stood awkwardly between them, waiting for his friend to _ —finally _ —wipe his nose with the back of his hand, sniffle, and talk.

“Hi!”

That was it. That's all he told her.

The first Major Thing Mikasa noticed, as she blinked at the odd child, was his hair. It was crazy. It had a life of its own, standing out all unruly and fluttering sideways in the breeze, throwing his bangs over his forehead, some stands glowing yellow in the sunlight.

The second Major Thing was his eyelashes. She had always thought boys couldn't grow long eyelashes. She realized then that she'd been wrong.

The third Major Thing was the pinkness of his cheeks, ruddy from exercise and perhaps too much shouting. They matched her own cheeks. She didn’t know boys' cheeks could turn pink either.

He was an odd specimen. A creature she was now exposed to. One she could not comprehend.

His attention seemed to bounce around like a ball, jumping this way and that and never really staying in one place. His eyes, bright green and shining, shot to Armin, then to her, then to Armin again and then right down to the dirty soccer ball he held in his hands before he looked once more to his friend and said, “Hey, does this mean she can play with us?”

“Play with you?” Mikasa echoed, still holding her dress. Her voice wavered, but the boy didn't seem to notice, for in his expression flourished with something far too excited to be nullified by her own qualms.

“Yeah!” and then his giddy attention focused on her. Her hair blew over her face again. She didn't bother scolding it. “You could be in my team!”

“Eren,” Armin chided, “she can't.”

Then, that was when she noticed the fourth Major Thing: his eyes possessed a strange undertone of blue. The color flared through when he gaped tragically, “Why not?”

“Because,” their friend whispered secretively, bringing up a hand to cup one side of his mouth, “she's wearing a dress.”

“So?”

“So she can't play soccer.”

“I don't get it.”

“She could trip and fall. Her dress could get caught on something.”

“But it's an open field!”

“She'll get hurt, Eren.”

This made him pout. Frown. Slump his shoulders.

“Shit.”

Mikasa gasped, covering her mouth, aghast at the word he'd just spoken. Seriously? Did he just say that?! The s-word was a big no no in her household. If her parents had heard him talk like that, he would've been in trouble. Her ears felt dirty just by hearing him, and his presence suddenly perturbed her; but when she turned to peer at Armin, the blond didn't seem affected by his obscenity at all.

“Eren,” he sighed, “please,” but then said no more.

When the boy turned his gaze on her again, she saw that not only were his eyes green with blue and fringed by his lengthy lashes which touched the tops of his rosy cheeks whenever he blinked, but she also saw that they held little flakes of fire in them, burning bright, bright gold and dazzling her. That was the fifth Major Thing she saw.

“I'll get someone else on my team, then,” Eren settled. And just like that, the boy swiveled on his heels and walked away.

It felt like the leaves turned again, but this time to the opposite direction.

Did princes ever leave their princesses like that?

In her heart, she realized, there was pain. Some dull sting reminiscent of disappointment, like the one she feels whenever Mama bakes apple pie instead of chocolate cake for dessert. She couldn't understand it, but it was as if her heart wasn't agreeing with the current string of events. Like things weren't meant to go this way.

She was left to stand there with her weird emotions as her lips parted in a fruitless attempt to speak. She stared at the back of the boy's head, her eyes drifting up and down the length of his body until suddenly he turned around, threw his hair out of his eyes, smiled at her.

At that instant, she noticed the final Major Thing:

A dimple.

Very small.

His teeth were lined neatly save for a single crooked lateral incisor, screaming out as the only imperfection as his lips stretched so wide they created a tiny indentation by the corner of his mouth. His grin was flashy and astounding, a blasphemy in some way, a burst of emotion she seldom saw on other children (not that she ever really saw other children, to be frank). Her eyes lingered on that strange dimple for some reason. It was as if she were imagining it. Mikasa blinked at it multiple times, unsure of whether it was truly there. She found herself a skeptic.

“It was nice to meet you, Ackerman!” he tweeted before vanishing, jogging back to the band of squealing children in the park, leaving her to gape at Armin as he merely shrugged at her and sighed.

“He's kinda weird a little,” he told her. “You'll get used to him.”

All she could think to do was nod, revise the list of Major Things she'd just discovered, and wonder how it was the child knew her last name. Surely, she couldn’t remember ever giving it to him.

He left a big impression on her, that boy. The sun shone and the clouds moved and the leaves hissed and Mikasa wondered what was wrong with her, for she felt ill in his absence. His presence lingered even after he was gone, the way soft smoke does after a fire's been extinguished.

**—o—**

School was a nightmare.

Mama's benign expressions and Papa's set of thumbs up didn't do much to encourage her either. In the sea of unfamiliar faces, Mikasa was the odd one out. The guppy. The tiny one. The weakling. The scarce. Even teachers bared knives for teeth. Everyone was a shark. Everyone was out to get her.

On the first day of fourth grade, Mama had been kind enough to drive Mikasa to school, as she felt that taking the bus would induce a mild panic episode. She'd been right, of course. Mama was always right in everything. It was one of the powers that came with being an adult: predictability.

Hopping out of the van, after re-adjusting the straps of her backpack on her shoulders, Mikasa took a very deep breath and told God that if He helped her that day, then she would swear to eat all of her veggies at dinnertime. Mikasa didn't believe in fairytales, but she was a firm believer in God.

And so she whispered, under her breath, “Give me strength, Kami, and I promise I will eat all the broccoli tonight.” Kami was what she called her God. She'd decided on the name a few years prior, after asking Mama what God was called in Japanese. Kami, she had answered. And thus Kami God now was.

Mikasa was a child of many questions, but the howling wilderness of elementary school silenced her curiosity and pushed it into a very private space within herself, where it would surely never come out of again. Her voice deteriorated in her throat. Her breath disintegrated in her lungs. What once were vivid questions, pulsating with the promise of answers that practically glowed, now wilted and fell apart inside her.

Mikasa wanted to cry.

Once Mama gave her the day's goodbye kiss, Mikasa swallowed a large gulp of air to ease the pain and fear. Mama had then whispered small encouragements, given her a tiny shove, and watched as little Mikasa waddled away, sparing a few back glances only to be met by a mother's wide encouraging smile, her set of onyx-gray eyes that matched her own twinkling more and more the wider she grinned. The farther Mikasa got away from her, the more she felt like sprinting back. Step, after step, after step, the girl kept walking, until she was so far away from her mother that she couldn't see her anymore.

Mikasa really wanted to cry.

“Give me strength, Kami. Give me strength.”

She was weightless, carried off by the current and swept into the crowd of people, the sea of sharks, the ocean of terror. Her throat tightened into a knot and tears pricked her eyes. She was scared. She was nervous. She was terribly intimidated and yet, somehow, still as equally excited.

She was silent.

All morning, Mikasa was silent.

She didn't speak unless told to do so. She scribbled quietly on her notebooks, doodled flowers and ponies (two balls and a set of stick legs and a long tail, that's a pony) and studied the world around her with quick, fleeting eyes. The only time her vocal chords strained to make any sort of noise was when it was her turn to introduce herself to the class. “Mikasa Ackerman,” she boomed during first period, making a few of the kids jump. She made a mental note: Next time, say it more quietly.

Science, Math, English, all classes went the same. What was her name? Mikasa Ackerman. Was she new to the school? Yes, she was. Was this her first time going to a private school? Yes, indeed. It was also her first time going to a school in general. She'd been home schooled all her life. Did she have friends in this school? Yes. She had a friend named Armin but he didn't come to school that day 'cause he was sick. Armin was always sick. (They never bothered her much after that comment.)

And so the day rolled on, and after a period or two Mikasa's uneasiness settled. She found that school wasn't as hard and she'd initially thought it would be. All she had to do was sit quietly and pay attention—and even when the subjects got boring and she found her focus flittering away, all she had to do was play pretend. She was good at that, playing pretend. In her mind, she built castles, kingdoms, thrones. She soared. The teachers never noticed.

The first day of school was moving along smoothly. With a tinge of happiness, Mikasa saw the sharks around her turn to friends. She liked it here. She could stay. She couldn't wait to tell her parents about her wonderful first day.

But then last period came.

It was art class.

One would think such a class would be the easiest, right? That's what Mikasa had thought. She'd been wrong.

The teacher insisted that all students take turns writing their names on the chalkboard and then proceed to share a fun fact about themselves, so that the other kids would get a start in knowing them. The assignment was both terrorizing and pointless. When the teacher had demanded such an introduction, Mikasa blanched.

She sweated, she frayed, she stammered.

She prayed to Kami. She revised their truce. Give me strength and I'll eat the veggies. Give me strength and I'll eat them all. Even the carrots. Even the peas. Give me strength, God, and I will do it. She was half-way through her fourth or fifth prayer when it was suddenly her turn to go.

The air was still.

The room brimmed with silence.

She pushed her chair back with an ear-splitting screech, arose, balled her small hands into fists and ignored the fact that they were shaking. They itched to be wrung together, the way they always did when she was nervous. But she fought. She reminded God of their deal and mentally prepared herself for the task ahead.

Taking a large inhale, she took a dive into the depths of the ocean. Not even sharks would take her. She could do it. She was brave. It was simple: write your name, spill a fun fact about yourself, and then never repeat the procedure again. Never. She could do it. She was strong.

Finally, Mikasa stood before the sea of children. The teacher, Mrs. Ral, gave a small nod.

Go on, she mouthed to her. Go on.

And so she did.

“My name is Mikasa Ackerman.” Her voice bounced from head to head, from blinking eye to blinking eye, and she watched as it reached each of her classmates' ears until, suddenly, a startling pair of teal-green circles inundated her vision and sunk her confidence into the farthest reaches of her soul.

Her heart stopped and gasped.

Her tummy fluttered with a swarm of butterflies and Mikasa, poor Mikasa, forgot what she was just about to say or do. She couldn't remember why she stood before her classmates and Mrs. Ral anymore. The leaves turned, the sun shone, nature assembled. She saw all of it in those eyes. She saw all of it.

Eren stared at her.

With his bangs over his forehead, his long lashes flitting patiently with every slow blink of his eyes, his cheeks no longer pink but the pencil he chewed on was redolent of the same color. She didn't know boys used pink pencils. She didn't know Eren was in this class. She didn't know anything.

Eren stared at her.

Mikasa looked away.

Mrs. Ral's voice broke the silence.

“Sweetie,” she pointed at the large chalkboard behind the trembling child, “write your name.”

“Oh.” The classroom swelled with a twang of laughter. The kids all giggled among themselves as Mrs. Ral tried to shush them. Before turning around to grip the worn stick of chalk, Mikasa stole a quick peek at the boy she'd met only a few days ago.

Eren wasn't laughing.

Everyone around him, though, still was.

“Quiet,” Mrs. Ral hissed at the children. After a few seconds, they finally obeyed.

Shriek, shriek, screeeeech! The chalk was a cringe-inducing cacophony as she drew her name on the board. As soon as a neat, meticulous  _ Mikasa Ackerman  _ was written out in large letters, she turned around and made her way back to her chair hastily. The teacher, though, promptly objected before she could get far.

“Wait, whoa, don't go yet.” The children laughed again, louder this time. “Shh! Kids, please.” Mikasa swallowed down the lump inside her throat, the tears straining to burgeon. “You're not done yet, honey.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize.” Mrs. Ral scribbled something down on her notebook, half-sitting on her desk. Her foot, suspended, swung back and forth in the air like the mocking arm of a clock. Tick, tock. Back and forth. Counting the seconds.“That's an interesting name you have there, Mikasa.” _ Is it really?  _ “Do you know what it means?”

Her lips parted. She breathed through them. She closed her eyes until the tears were gone, and then she spoke.

“Papa says I was named after a battleship.”

Quiet laughter.

“A battleship?” The teacher's eyes were wide. Did she say something wrong? Self-conscious, Mikasa wrung her little hands together and swallowed, nodded her head.

“Mhm.”

“Oh. Interesting. Very interesting.” She scribbled on the notebook again, writing down her grown up teacher stuff. Mikasa smoothed out a strand of hair that poked out of her bun, feeling all eyes on her—especially the unique teal-green ones. “Can you tell us a fact about yourself?”

“Um…” Sunlight filtered in through the large windows. Specks of dust shimmered in the light. Mikasa thought of how they floated, how they danced...

“I taught myself how to dance ballet.”

“Really? That's so interesting!”

“Thank you.” 

“You're the new student, aren't you?” Mrs. Ral was smiling. Her teeth were snowy white and complemented by the lovely features of her face. Her expression was soft and captivating. Marveling, Mikasa watched the way she ran her fingers through her strawberry blonde hair, how it fell just to her shoulders, how her lithe posture tilted as she shifted around to sit more comfortably on the desk. There was an ethereal air to her. She reminded Mikasa of a queen.

Linking her small fingers together over her lap, the girl answered. “Yes.”

“Did you hear that, kids? It's Mikasa's very first day here. Say, 'welcome to our school, Mikasa.'”

“Welcome to our school, Mikasa,” they all droned cohesively.

“Thank you,” she murmured to the group.

Mrs. Ral was still smiling. Her eyes were honey-colored and warm. Her gentle lips glistened with a sheen layer of lip gloss. Her eyelashes were coated with mascara and stuck out far, curving upwards like feathery arcs. She'd never seen a grown up like her before. Her graceful aura reminded her of Mama.

“Is there anything you would like to say to the class?”

Mikasa shook her head. “No, ma'm.”

“No other fun facts about yourself? You're new. We could use the bonus.”

“Well, I really like chocolate.”

“That's so nice! Anything else?”

“I'm four feet, three inches tall.”

“You're taller than my daughter. Is there anything you like to do besides ballet?”

“I like to play with my dolls.”

“She still plays with dolls?” she heard a girl titter. Mikasa swallowed, trying very hard to ignore.

“Do you have a favorite one?”

“I'm sorry?”

“A favorite doll, honey. Do you have one?”

Her eyes shot to the whispering child, whom was smiling at her friend and giggling softly. Were kids not supposed to play with dolls? Did she say something funny? Why were those girls laughing?

Her eyes flickered to Eren.

He no longer chewed on the pink pencil. He stared at her. There wasn't any expression on his face. He was watching her so intently, Mikasa felt pinned by the weight of his gaze. When the kid behind him leaned forward to whisper something in his ear, Eren didn't even react to him.

The girl continued laughing with her friend. Mikasa swallowed. Every quiet _ tee-hee-hee _ that came out of her shook her soul.

“No,” she voiced finally, “I don't have one,” even though she did. Ningyo had been her favorite doll since she was a baby. The thought of her mottled flesh and tattered hair made her think of home, which only worsened her feeling of uneasiness.

She thought of Mama's smiles.

Of Papa's thumbs up.

Of her deal with God.

“What else can you tell us about yourself, sweetie?” the teacher pushed, swinging her foot, cocking her head to one side. “Any cool skills? Can you whistle or roll your tongue?”

“No, I can't.”

“Then what can you do?”

“I know how to kill a duck.”

Gasps.

The entire classroom was a chorus of gasps—even Mrs. Ral gave a startled noise.

Did she say something wrong?

“Oh, wow.” The teacher held a hand to her chest. “Really?”

Everyone's eyes were wide. Everyone's except for Eren's.

“Yes...”

“How come you know how to, uh, do that?”

“My father hunts. He takes me with him sometimes.”

More gasps.

Eren was smiling now.

“Okaaaaaaaaay.” Mrs. Ral elongated the word, giving a nervous chuckle. “And, uh… what ethnicity are you?”

She glanced down at her hands, woven together before her knee-length skirt. Mikasa felt the tears begin to sting again after hearing another girl whisper, “Is she stupid?”

Why was the world so cruel?

“Maybe she is stupid.”

She felt ill with home-sickness. She wanted nothing more than to be in Mama's arms.

“Yeah. I bet.”

She just wanted to go home.

“...I'm half Japanese,” she breathed, realizing suddenly that she was the only Asian in her class. This only made her feel even more terrible. She wished she could vanish. Into thin air, vanish. She stood naked before the entire class, so that when the kids all came together to spew out comments about her under their breaths, they induced the ultimate damage. She heard them, every single one. Every. Single. One. Their words were like fire balls being hurled across the room and straight at her.

Powerless, the small girl burned.

“She's a Jap.”

“Ew.”

“I thought she was Chinese.”

“She doesn't look Chinese.”

“They all look the same to me.”

“That's mean.”

“What? It's true.”

“They all have funny names too.”

“She's named after a battleship.”

“Pffft! A battleship!”

“She's ugly.”

“All Asians are ugly. And short.”

“Look how puny she is.”

“I think she's pretty.”

“You're blind.”

“I like her hair.”

“She's a gook.”

“A gook? What's that?”

“I dunno. It's what Dad calls Asians.”

“I think it means chicken curry.”

“Chicken curry?”

“Yeah. Gook is chicken curry.”

“No, it's not, you weirdo.”

“Hey, that's a bad word.”

“Weirdo?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you guys shut the fuck up?”

“Eren, you cursed!”

“Well, your voice is annoying and you're bothering me. Be quiet.”

“I'm gonna tell my mom you said that.”

“Go ahead. I'll punch your face in.”

“Eren!”

“Hey, we're just kidding about the gook thing.”

“Chicken curry.”

“Shh.”

“Do you think she can hear us?”

“I don't know. She looks like she's about to cry.”

“That's funny.”

“I hope she does.”

“Jap tears.”

“Hey, that's racist.”

“What does racist mean?”

“Pffft. Jap tears.”

“Gook tears.”

“Chicken curry tears.”

They all laughed.

Mikasa closed her eyes.

Why was the world so cruel?

Devastated, she thought of Mama. Of her slanted eyes, her silky black hair, her dainty pallor, her lithe fingers and long nails. The beauty she possessed so gracefully, the one she'd passed down to her with pride. She felt the tears welling in her eyes, her spirit trampled by the children's harshness. Did Mrs. Ral not hear them? Were their whispers not loud enough for her to catch? Mikasa felt them all in her soul. They stung tremendously. They drew cracks on her heart. Gook. Jap. Ugly. Chicken Curry. Who knew children could be so mean? Kami had deserted her, it seemed. And so, biting down her quivering lip, she mustered her own strength and refused to allow the tears to fall. She wouldn't allow them to see her cry. She would not give them the satisfaction.

“And the other half?” Mrs. Ral asked calmly, as if time had stopped through the duration of the children's bickers and now it warped and resumed again. Mikasa didn't even look at her. Opening her eyes, she whispered quietly.

“Please, Mrs. Ral. I just want to sit.”

“Oh?” The teacher straightened, and the pause that followed was curious. She scrutinized Mikasa. For a second, she thought she'd even refuse her the right to sit. But she didn't. Mrs. Ral glanced down at her wristwatch and told her, “Alright. Thank you, Mikasa. You may take your seat.”

And so she did.

By the time her butt hit the flat surface of the chair, Mikasa's tears had chilled in her eyes. She didn't cry, which was good, but she felt the pieces of her heart fall off slowly, bit by bit, until finally there was nothing left of it anymore, and her gentle spirit seared with rage. It was not fair. She'd never done a bad thing to anybody. She didn't deserve this treatment from her peers. She relinquished her truce with Kami. She stared out the window, straight into the sun, not caring if she went blind or whatever. She watched the leaves turn on the trees outside, and pretended she could feel the breeze caress her skin, the sunlight warm her cheeks, the trees talking to her. She pretended she was in the woods, in her old home, petting animals and catching bugs and showing them to Papa. She pretended she could smell duck roasting in the oven, grass needles tickling the soles of her bare feet. Her toes wiggled in her school shoes. She pretended she could feel the weight of a crown on her head, a crown woven from her hands and made of flowers. Mikasa was good at making flower crowns. With a spiritual sigh, the young princess longed.

She missed her home.

She hated school.

She decided: after getting home, she'll convince her parents to take her out of private school. She never wanted to see these kids—or even Mrs. Ral—ever again. She'd demand to be home schooled for the rest of her life, and after eating dinner and refusing to eat her veggies, she would brush Ningyo's hair, fix her into one of the dresses Mama had sown for her, and then she'd let her rest on the pillow right next to her own, pull the blanket up to her chin so that she wouldn't get cold, kiss her goodnight, and go to sleep with the promise of a new day, a day which will never return to this atrocious place again.

With her new plan, Mikasa felt some small sense of relief. Yes. She would do it. She would rid herself of this place and focus solely on ballet.

She was smiling then. The tears were gone.

A new hope dawned inside of her. Mikasa stared out the window for so long that her neck began to cramp. She didn't think of where else she would care to look, for she'd leave this place behind anyway, so she continued to stare out at the sun—until suddenly she heard a familiar voice crow triumphantly, “Finally, it's my turn.”

Immediately, Mikasa turned her head.

Eren was scribbling on the chalkboard, drawing out his name in sharp, choppy letters, all out of order, some tilting up, some tilting down, nodding drunkenly. His handwriting was hasty and messy. He wrote his name right next to hers, so that the disastrous  _ Eren Jager  _ contrasted the elegant Mikasa Ackerman so much it left her in awe.

“My name— Wait. I missed a letter.”

He turned back around and drew an 'e' next to the 'a' in his last name. It was squished in there, barely decipherable, but his name now read Eren Jaeger. Mikasa blinked. Then blinked again. She'd stared at the sun for so long that black spots slid around in her vision. Still, she saw the way Eren then proceeded to turn around, how the whisper of a smirk consumed his lips and grew into a smile.

“My name is Eren Jaeger,” he grinned—with no dimple, Mikasa noticed, this time. “But all of you already knew that. My name has a pretty cool meaning, too, my mom says. It means, 'saint'. Don't laugh. I know it's very iconic.”

“Ironic,” Mrs. Ral corrected. Eren's mouth stayed open where she'd interrupted him. He blinked at her, bemused.

“Say what?”

“Ironic,” she repeated. “The word you're looking for is ironic, Eren. Not iconic.”

“Right. Thank you.” He cleared his throat, and the way he stood, the way he spoke, it was like he was going a hundred miles per second. At least, that's how Mikasa felt it was. His voice made her feel dizzy. Each breath he took in before talking drew her attention solely onto him. She eyed him the entire time he talked, each word spilling out of him freely and candidly. He didn't seem nervous at all. All eyes were on him and still he was comfortable. He welcomed all the gazes, the way airports welcome planes before they land.

“Anyway,” the boy continued. A hundred miles per hour. A dizzying effect. “I like to draw and I'm trying to teach myself how to play the guitar but most days it doesn't go the way I want it to. I kinda suck at it.”

“Language, Eren.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ral. My favorite food is pizza with extra cheese. I can't kill a duck but I'm pretty good at soccer so I guess that's cool too. Also, I can whistle really loud.  _ Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!  _ That's my whistle. I can't roll my tongue, though. I don't really know how tall I am but last time I checked, I was the tallest kid in this class.”

“No, you're not!” a kid objected.

“Shut up. I'm still taller than you.”

“Eren, be nice.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ral. My parents are both of German descent, which makes me full German or something. Not that I know how to speak German. I just know how to say 'I love you.'  _ Ich liebe dich.  _ Cool, huh? I heard Dad say it once to Mom, which is gross. Also,  _ dummkopf  _ means idiot.”

“Language.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ral. Also, I know how to say a few words in Spanish but not much. And French. I think languages are awesome. Speaking of Germany, I hear the best chocolate comes from that place. But I think chocolate's nasty. I hate it. It makes me gag.”

“Wow, Eren. That's a lot of information you're giving us today.”

“Thanks. I know.”

“What's the occasion?”

He sighed a bit dramatically, swiping his bangs out of his eyes. “Well, you see...”

Suddenly, his eyes were on Mikasa.

She froze.

“I saw what you did to the new girl today,” Eren voiced, now a bit sheepish,which was new, “and I think it's only fair that if she has to say so much about herself for us to get to know her, then we should do the same for her. That way, she gets to know us too.”

“That's… an interesting point, Eren.”

His eyes were off of her.

Mikasa breathed again.

“Thanks. I know.”

“Anything else?”

“I tried ballet once. Broke my knee.”

“Eren...”

“Okay, that was a lie,” he laughed. A fruity laugh. “But I just thought that it'd be funny. Imagine me in a tutu!”

“Take your seat, kid.”

“Of course.”

He trotted over to his chair. The children murmured. The teacher chuckled then sighed. The one up next stood up, said their name, drew it on the chalkboard. The monotony of the day continued but within Mikasa, something stirred.

She realized.

He just answered all the questions that were asked to me.

He answered them all and even poked fun at himself so that she would feel less embarrassed. Was it kindness? Did he really need to say all of that out loud? By the looks of it, everyone in this classroom already knew him. All that information wasn't necessary. Did he really just stand in front of everyone and said all those things for her ? To make her feel better? For her to know him? What?

Mikasa pondered.

Should she be flattered?

Should she be offended?

How was she supposed to feel?

Tentatively, Mikasa turned her head and peered over her shoulder to where Eren sat, chewing on his pink pencil, already staring at her. For a moment, she held his gaze, debating whether she should make some sort of gesture to thank him, or even scold him.

_ “It was nice to meet you, Ackerman!” _

Suddenly, it dawned on her that he already knew last name. In a sense, she was bound to him more than to the others already just for that. And then he'd gone along and done that.

As a nine-year-old, Mikasa had a lot of thoughts. They clouded her judgment sometimes. This was one of those times. She turned and looked away from him.

Staring out at the sun again, she thought of the way princes sometimes save their princesses. It's not always done on horseback, in glistening armors, with thrashing swords and skyward cries of victories. Sometimes, it is done humbly and in secrecy. With a joke. With a smile. With all the gentleness in the world.

She turned again to look at Eren.

He wasn't looking at her. She waited until he was.

When his green eyes with the blue undertone and specks of fire finally met hers, she smiled at him. He smiled at her. His dimple flashed. She turned back around, felt a hiccup in her heart.

It wasn't much, but, for now, it was her way of saying thank you. She told Kami that the truce still stood. Tonight, she was eating all her veggies. All of them.

Even the peas.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been feeling very discouraged with this story, I'm not going to lie. If you read this, please be sure to leave a review or some sort of feedback somehow. Show your support. It makes the world of a difference.
> 
> Next chapter, we'll be going back to the present. That's the plan, at least. Until next time!


	7. Baby, It's Cold Outside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support. I can't tell you what it means to me. Initially, I planned not to update the story until it gained more followers, but your kindness has prompted me to release this chapter sooner. You will never know the joy you guys bring me, and for that I thank you with all my heart. 
> 
> PS: Yay to meeting new characters, especially Annie! Special thanks to my dear friend Jess for helping me make sure she was in character here, and for proof reading this entire thing. She's a life saver.

It is incredibly draining.

Her eyes, although closed in rest, do not fail to see the events that take place in her mind. Within dreams, Mikasa wanders. Her feet land on familiar floors, wooden thumps that echo in the furthest depths of her consciousness. The walls—pale, and pastel—feel of childhood and of home. The air permeates the smell of her mother's hair, her father's most recent kill roasting in the fire. And because the two scents oddly combine into a soothing fragrance, her steps are lured to the small kitchen of their house, only to find no trace of her mother, nothing cooking in a fire, no flames to smoke or roast. Still, the vestiges of use remain around, as if something had been cooking in the coal-based oven, as if someone had been there just moments before. She's late, that's all. In the fire pit, the embers whisper their final glows before dying.

Suddenly, she's somewhere else.

If she were to reach out her hand, she would feel it: the gritty texture of the stucco walls of the basement, where Mama sits to sew and hum quietly to herself, where Papa likes to lounge and simply watch her. If she were to look closer, she would see it: the shimmer in his steely eyes as he marvels at his wife, the crinkles that form by their corners when he smiles at something she says. If she were to speak, she'd call out to both of them and turn their necks, make them look at her, see their smirks grow into smiles and the reverent silence break with a soft utterance of her name.

_ Welcome home, Mikasa. _

Welcome home.

But her hand reaches out to find the rumpled sheets of the bed she now lays in. Her eyes open to meet the dull blur of a gray morning, an empty apartment, a deserted space beside her on the bed. She moves. Only to turn away from the light of day and pull the sheets over her head to fend off the loneliness, she moves.

It's Christmas today.

And Jean, of course, is working.

It is incredibly draining. To have these dreams, to long for their reality, to reach out to specters that feel too perfect only to wake up and remember: oh, right, reality sucks. Yesterday, it had been Armin. Today, it's Mom and Dad. Countless mornings before that, it'd been a low, husky voice breathing words that would abandon her as soon as she bolted to a wake, her spirit buzzing in the aftermath as she stared vacantly ahead. Seconds. That's all it took for her to know who had been talking to her in her sleep. Seconds, and that's it.

Eren dreams are the absolute _ worst _ .

Just the same day she'd gotten back from his apartment, her mind had done a pretty fine job of keeping his memory at bay. Pretending. Mikasa was good at that. She pretended not to see, not to feel, not to hear all the puny things around her that brought him sprinting to her mind. The color blue, or green, or gold; warm smells like incense or woolen clothing. Walking home, she'd avoided cafes and anything that could possibly contain the smell of coffee. Or chocolate. She'd pulled her scarf up to her nose and breathed through it, but even that held a tinge of his home too.

She couldn't pull him off of her. For the life of her, she couldn't. She could feel his scent on her clothes and hair, the rim of his mug against her lips, the earth tones of his apartment reaching out to grab her through the snow. And how fortunate she was that it was winter, that smells hardly loitered in the air and everything around was either gray or white or covered in ice. Her surroundings held no trace of him and yet he flickered momentarily, once or twice, like fathomed shards that materialized to taunt her, and then swiftly melt away.

Okay, fine. So maybe she  _ didn't  _ do that great of a job at keeping him out of her mind, but she did try. Very hard, she did. She'd even gone shopping, for what it's worth, picking out some random object before hauling up a cab straight home. And when she showed up with the Victoria's Secret bag hanging from an elbow, greeted Jean and recited the events of her day, she'd even shut the tiny whisper of her conscience out.  _ Here you go, lying to him again _ . Mikasa had promptly reminded her inner voice to cork it.

" _ I saw you took the credit card,"  _ he'd told her.

" _ I bought something on the way here." _

" _ Can I see?" _

And you won't believe the look on his face—both their faces, really—when what she pulled out of the bag was a flimsy g-string that made every nuance in her being wail in fright. The thing was tinier than the palm of her hand, and, gaping as it dangled from her finger and before her fiancé's (also gaping) face, her rankled brain scrambled for an explanation as to how the fuck—and just _ what _ the fuck she had been thinking to pick out something like that. Perhaps it was the sudden craze of it all, what with seeing Eren again in full light for the first time in nearly six years her usually-trained thoughts were sure to suffer some consequences, but who in their right mind would purchase a thing like that? God damn. The contraption was nothing more than a triangle with strings.  _ Strings _ . Imagine the giant gulp she took once she realized one of them was supposed go in between her ass cheeks.

" _ Whoa."  _ Even Jean seemed slightly terrified of it. _ "That's… new." _

A nervous chuckle had fleeted out of her, and as if the situation wasn't already embarrassing enough, she realized suddenly that it was a bright, resonating shade of pink. Like Pepto Bismol pink, and flaming, and edging on the brink of damn near phosphorescent. Every inch (barely) of that thing screamed ceratin torture.

" _ I didn't know you wore underwear like that."  _

Neither did she.

" _ I just thought I could try something different?"  _ Lie. To be honest, nothing could be farther from the truth. The weird thong thingy reminded her of the underwear she'd seen earlier that day hanging on Eren's lamp shade. With a spiritual shudder, she realized that it really  _ did _ resemble the horrific item of clothing, except that it had less lace, more string, and it was way smaller.

It certainly wasn't even her size. The triangle shape (which she supposed was there to cover her crotch area) looked like it could potentially do only half of its job. Oh, Lord. Nothing could be more displeasing to the imagination's eye. She would never wish such a fate upon anyone. So then why the everliving crud did she  _ buy _ it for herself?

Eren had a beautiful way of rendering her senseless. And stupid. And dumb.

It took Jean a few seconds to fully gauge the thing. And once he took it in his hands, stretched it out to see it completely, a half-grin seized his lips and he peered down at his flushing fiancée.

" _ You should wear them tonight." _

Rest in peace, butt crack.

With a drowsy smile, Mikasa runs her fingers down his spot on the bed. The sheets are cold, his body heat having long abandoned them, and they susurrate against her touch, rustling when she crumples up a bunch in her hand.

And then, just as quickly, this small pocket of serenity leaves.

Grimly, she's reminded that reality is despondent. There's going to be a party later on tonight, and Jean plans to take her. Jiji should be fine enough without them. They will not be gone for long.

In her mind, she prepares herself for the events of this dreadful day: cleaning, more cleaning, some aimless laying about and a healthy conversation with their cat. She will be a good fiancée, dress up all pretty for her man, greet him with a kiss and a smile and exclaim her excitement for the evening that is to come, how much she loves his friends and his mother, how good they all are to her. It's not a lie when it's acting. It's not just petty falsehood when it's playing pretend. There is something to be accomplished, a truth to be told, elaborated through a different method, that's all. Curling into a little ball, she reminds herself:

She will be a good fiancée.

She will be a good wife.

She will be a good mother.

She will be  _ happy. _

There's a point to every day, a purpose to why the daylight pours in demandingly through the curtains, why Jiji meows for her to rise and feed him, why her lungs hurt but there's still oxygen rushing through them, blood coursing in her veins, life reverberating, pounding in her chest. She has her plan set out before her. She's etched her future into stone. There's a point. There's a purpose.

But she feel that she’s long forgotten it.

Jiji doesn't have to meow more than twice today. Tired, submissive, Mikasa brings herself to stand. The carpet in their room is soft under her feet, the hardwood floors of their living room smooth, the tiles of their kitchen floor frigid. She feels it all but even then it's like she's floating. Do her limbs move by themselves? Does her body no longer function by command but more upon instinct, the way a heart beats and eyelids blink automatically without the mind's consent? Who knows? Who cares? She feeds their cat, crouches down to watch him, runs her fingers through her mussed hair.

With every snowless Christmas, comes a great degree of pain. That, too, is incredibly draining.

Closing her eyes, Mikasa thinks of home: of stucco walls and smirks that flourish into smiles; of shimmering eyes and the soft thrum of lullabies. Mama's voice. Papa. Of small hands ripping wrappers off of presents and exclaiming in delight. Of Christmas music bouncing in the air and dancing through their muscles. Everything being safe. Everything being simple and innocent and peaceful.

But she's not a little girl anymore, no matter how bad she wishes that she was. She's not. She's not. She's not.

Her butt's the first to hit the cold tiles, then the back of her thighs, her calves, the heels of her feet, she shoulder blades, her head. Her spine aches with discomfort but so does everything else internally so what difference does it make? She has a wedgie. Of course. But suddenly now she's far too drained to pull it. And her butt cheeks press against the tiled floor which, okay, is _ really _ friggin' cold and makes goosebumps raise on her skin and harden her nipples against the fabric of her fiancé's t-shirt—which she wears, pathetically enough, with much sadness, clinging somehow to his presence through the scarcity of his scent. It smells just like him—and not cologne-showered, gel-slathered him, but _ him _ him. Like his hair. Like his skin. Like the man she loves and is going to marry.

She will be a good fiancée.

She will be a good wife.

She will be a good mother.

She. Will. Be. Happy.

But an inexplicable emptiness erodes her fortitude now, in this very moment, in this very minute, regardless of the future they have planned. And when her eyes close, long hair splayed around her head on the floor, sides billowing with an inhale, panties digging into her ass, Mikasa sees it.

Green.

Blue.

Gold.

And then  _ scars _ .

Splayed across a broad chest randomly like flecks of fire splattered on by the swift swing of a paintbrush, gashing and burning themselves into permanent existence, some even trickling down to the taut ripples of an abdomen, all of them like shooting stars forever frozen into place. A large one on a right palm. A tiny one on a bicep. A faded one just above a brow. Veins that run like rivulets in tan skin, and the single thick one that protrudes the muscled length of an upper arm. And when she takes a deep breath, she smells it.

Pine.

Lemon.

Wood.

Earthy, citrusy, musky. Him.

Old spice. Coffee. Chocolate. Books. Just oxygen in general is filled with him, damn it. Mikasa runs her hands down her face, sighing. Does the past have a smell? Can it all be carried in the confined spaces of a single body? Is a single man ample to bottle it all up? Are scarred hands enough to hold the foundation of ten years of her life that will never return to her? Is half of her childhood, and more, all woven into the patterns of two teal-green irises? When will anything around her make any goddamn sense anymore?

Memories dance like shadows in her vision, and when her lips part to speak, they call out to no one. "Fuck," she breathes. Yeah. Fuck. A crude, harsh word she hasn't uttered in forever. Her tummy ripples with a drop of excitement. What a rebel she's being. She spends one day with Eren, and now look at what she's become.

"Fuck," she says again, only louder, more daring, more free. "Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!"

Then she's snorting. Giggling. Covering her mouth and wriggling around. Jiji purrs as he walks around her head, giving her a cavalier look like the one Hitch had worn when she'd answered Eren's door. Before her mind can transfix itself on that day again, on the rich taste of hot chocolate that still tingles her tongue and the sudden twitch that made her burst into laughter the likes of which she hadn't experienced in years and the hands that framed her own and pushed a book closer to her body, Jiji darts off to the other room, leaves the plate of cat food unfinished.

"Well," she tells him, even though he's far away, "fuck you too."

**—o—**

"Agh, fuck!"

"You're getting rusty, Jaeger."

"Ow. Okay, ow."

"Cacaw?"

"In your drea— OW!"

"Say it."

"N-no— OW! SHIT! OKAY!"

"Say it."

"Cacaw. Cacaw-haw."

"Louder."

"Annie, fucking  _ fuck _ !"

"Hm?"

"Stop being so— AH! I said CACAW!"

Reiner snorts, bringing a water bottle up to his lips for a sip. Wiping his mouth with the edge of his wrist, he muses over the sight before him. He's about to down a second gulp when he hears someone approaching from behind.

"Who's the bird?" Ymir asks him, reaching to take the bottle from his hands. He gives her a look, but she steals a large swig of his drink anyway, probably because she forgot to bring her own, knowing her.

"Eren."

"Of course, he is." She breathes after her second or third gulp, handing the bottle back to its owner. "Why is he making bird noises, though?"

"It's the safe word he chose for when he's in too much pain."

Ymir scoffs. "Idiot."

They both stand and watch as Annie twists his arm further up his back, pulling a sharp hiss and an "Ah-ha-ow!" out of him. It's great, because she's like, half the man's size and yet she has him pinned face-down to the ground, holding him still with nothing but her knee at the small of his back and his arm bent right behind him. With his cheek pressed to the matted floor, Eren's features contort in his misery.

"Hey!" Reiner calls, cupping his hands on either side of his mouth. "Go easy on him, Annie!" The only reply he receives is another cry of agony.

"To think she's still recovering from that boxing injury," Ymir notes, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her shirt sleeve.

Reiner shakes his head in mild astonishment. "He's one of the best fighters here, and he gets beaten into making bird noises by a girl with a broken wrist."

"Who's even smaller than mister dwarf man over there," she points a finger at Connie, who's quick to flip her off. Every curse word known to man has been hissed and spat by Eren, who's practically crying into the mat and wriggling helplessly under the blonde's tiny weight. He manages to slip out of her hold somewhat, but she tightens her grip and makes him pay for it, costing him another cry of pain.

"I'm a good man," he laments with a sob. "I don't deserve this."

Reiner calls out again. "Annie! You'll break his arm!" but what this does is make her raise her head to look at them. With a sigh, Ymir gestures for Reiner to go help the poor man out.

All he has to do is tap the blonde on the shoulder, and she relinquishes her grip on Eren's arm and lifts her knee off his backside. Immediately, he sags onto the floor with a borderline pornographic moan of relief. He's face-down, for real now, his imperceptible whines so muffled and abstruse that even Annie has to fight the faintest of smiles.

"Oh, come on, Jaeger," Reiner teases, nudging him with his shoe. "What happened to 'I bet I can kick your ass in twenty seconds flat'?"

A groan is all he answers with, turning to lay on his back. "Shut up," he spits, cradling his face in his hands. Both Annie and Reiner smirk down at him, and after telling her that he's glad to have her back with them again, Reiner goes his own way, leaving her alone with a panting, sweaty Eren.

She waits patiently for him to catch his breath, re-doing her ponytail and swiping her bangs out of her face. Both hands hoisted on her hips, she peers down at him. And even though she's small in stature, having him there like that, gasping for air and covering his face by her feet, makes her ego inflate, makes her feel like a giant.

"Hopefully, this will teach you never to underestimate me again," she bends forward, offering him her good hand. All he does is glare at her and slap it away.

"You cheated."

"Did not."

"I said cacaw like fifty times!"

"I didn't hear you."

"Ugh."

She watches him throw his arms out to the sides, laying on the mat like a child about to make a snow angel. His chest swells and sinks with his breaths, and she skims her gaze over the sweat stain on his t-shirt, views how it moistens a patch on the fabric and melts from his neckline down to his sternum. With his eyes closed and lips parted, he kinda looks like a little kid—especially with the way his cheeks burn bright pink and sweat sticks his hair to his forehead. She'd never noticed before, but his eyelashes are  _ really  _ long. Now that she sees him like this, when he's not talking fifty miles an hour or goofing around, she can gauge his features a lot better.

Annie clears her throat.

"Get up."

"No."

"Eren, it's time to go. They'll close the place on us."

He only sighs. Shakes his head.

"Fine," Annie shrugs, but before she can turn to leave, Eren senses her movements and tells her wait for him. Reluctant, she does as he says.

His lids unveil a striking pair iridescent marbles, and she'd never noticed just how much color there is to his eyes until now. Perhaps it's just because she hasn't seen him in a few weeks due to recovering from an injury, or because she's not used to seeing him from this angle, or something's changed in him, or who knows what. But she catches little snips of him she never noticed before, even though she's known him for over four years now.

"Hold on." He's breathing more evenly now, but he still slaps a hand on his chest with a wheeze as if he were trying to steady his heart. Annie tries not to roll her eyes at him. Drama queen. "Help me up."

So she does, but all he's willing to do right now is sit upright and smile when she complains. They're both dirty, and sweaty, and in desperate need of a shower, but he gestures for her to take a seat beside him, insisting when she says no. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that she owes him so much, she probably wouldn't put up with half the crap he pulls on her.

"What?" she drones, taking her place beside him.

"Just thought we should talk for a bit."

"Can't it wait till we're clean?"

"Uh…" he untangles the tie around his hair, and the bistre strands fall free and frame his face before he combs his fingers through them to push them back. "No."

Now that his hair's out of his face, he looks much older, like the Eren she knows. And because he hasn't shaved yet, his stubble makes a faint scratchy sound when he runs a hand down his face, hissing before clutching his forearm.

"How's your arm?"

"Sore," he complains, rubbing his bicep and rolling his shoulder so that it pops. Once it does, he winces, and Annie fights the urge to ask if he's okay. It's not like her to be soft, but sometimes when she's around him, he elicits a degree of kindness from her she's not even sure she actually possesses. She clears her throat, and he shoots her a sideways glance, eyeing the brace around her wrist with an ambiguous expression. "How's your wrist?"

"Getting better."

"How'd you sprain it?"

Annie pulls her legs up to rest her chin on her knees, wrapping her arms around herself. "I told you," her voice is toneless. "I boxed without gloves on and pulled a punch the wrong way."

"Mmm." Eren's gaze is trained on her wrist, and she fears he'll insist on pressing the topic further. But he doesn't. He just shrugs and replies, with equal tonelessness, "Okay."

Annie's never been one for conversation, never really knowing what to say in return for words. Yet, seeing Eren nurse his arm, she briefly entertains the thought of apologizing. But again, she holds her tongue. The task seems too vulnerable and personal. So instead, she comes up with something else, something safer.

"You going to the party tonight?"

"Yep," he nods. "You?"

"Don't think so."

"Aw, why not? Come on, Annie, we all miss you."

"Maybe for New Year's. Christmas isn't really my thing."

"Right. Forgot. You're Jewish."

"Atheist."

"Right. Knew that." He runs his fingers through his hair a couple of times to pull it back into a tidier ponytail, but halfway through his efforts the band snaps. He curses loudly, but before he can overreact, she offers him the spare around her good wrist and he thanks her. "You know, Annie, you can be an atheist and still celebrate Christmas."

"You're just saying that because Christmas equals food and presents."

"And parties," he grins, handling her hair tie behind his skull. Annie shakes her head, catching the musky scent of his sweat mixed with his deodorant. As weird as it sounds, the smell is oddly pleasing somehow. Kinda like how a baby's head smells really nice. It's just weirdly comforting in a way, and makes his presence feel relaxing.

"What?" he asks, noticing her expression. "Parties are fun."

"They're full of… people."

Eren gasps, slapping a hand on his cheek. "Oh, no. Not people!"

"Stop."

"Living organisms who breathe and talk just like you, oh no! Annie! Annie, you poor thing!"

She sighs. Never mind. He's still annoying.

"Please come. Please? I don't want to be there without you."

"The party's right next door to your place, Eren. Just go home if it gets boring."

"But everyone's gonna be there! What do I tell them when they ask for you?"

"That I hate them."

He rolls his eyes, a dramatic turn of teal-green spherules that nearly lull to the back of his head. "They already know that."

"Well, then." Annie tucks her bangs behind her ears, but they're too short, so they curtain over her face again anyway. Her sweat's beginning to chill on her skin, which feels kinda gross, but Eren's staring straight ahead in silence for some reason, drumming his fingers on his knee. She's known him long enough to read the expression on his face. He wants to say something.

This is bad.

Knowing him, he'll sputter it out eventually, though, one way or another. So she waits, trailing her gaze over the stray hairs that missed his ponytail, the ones sticking to the nape of his neck with sweat. Surely enough, after a few seconds, he turns to look at her and speaks.

"Actually, there's a huge favor I need to ask of you."

"What?"

"Would you be my girlfriend?"

Annie promptly punches him in the face.

**—o—**

_ Clean  _ is an understatement.

Their apartment is so immaculate, even Jiji slips a couple of times over the polished hardwood floors—but maybe that's just because he's always sprinting to his destinations. Still, Mikasa would be lying if she said she didn't chuckle when he slid face-first into wall because of his frantic racing. He hasn't gotten his head stuck in anything today, though, at least.

Around noon, she goes out for her appointment at a nearby beauty salon. No manicures today, just waxing.  _ Waxing _ is an understatement too.  _ Ripping your soul out of your body through every aching, bleeding pore  _ more like. The body parts which endure such torture need not be named. Needless to say, it takes every ounce of grace within Mikasa not to waddle her way out of the salon, not to shout profanities when passing eyes seem to cling to her strange new gait.  _ There is fire between my legs _ , she seethes internally at them. _ I'm on friggin’ fire. _

Once back at home, after a nice hot bath, the pain subsides. With her hair up in a towel, she sits atop the toilet tank, her feet on the toilet seat lid. Leaning over, she paints her toenails, applying the nail polish one meticulous brush stroke at a time. She can't do any pretty squiggly designs like the girls at the salon she frequents, but painting within the lines is easy enough. It's when she has to let go of the book she's reading in between drying times to paint her fingernails that she really struggles.

The left hand isn't all that bad, but painting the right one is a pain. She's right-handed, so her less predominant hand trembles slightly while she aims all her focus to applying the color as cleanly as she can. She gives so much of her concentration that her tongue pokes out a little by the corner of her mouth.

Once that's done, it's waiting time. As she waits for her nails to dry, she crosses her legs, props an elbow on her thigh, perches her chin on the palm of her hand. The apartment is  _ so  _ quiet. She wishes she would've procured turning on the TV or putting on some music or something. There's no noise. Just the quiet sound of Jiji purring in his sleep and the thoughts that rattle in her brain with resounding clamor.

So, to distract herself, she hums.

Deep in her throat, songs her mother taught her ring. She closes her eyes, swinging a foot back and forth gently with her music. When she inhales through her nose to regain her breath, the poignant smell of the nail polish stings her nostrils. She pretends the smell is her mother's instead; pretends that she's breathing through smaller lungs, peering down at tiny toenails, small digits that wiggle as soon as her mom's done applying a soft, rosy paint.  _ Not too much _ , she tells her. If she wiggles her toes too fast, she'll ruin her nail polish.

So she keeps humming.

"Hmm, hmm, hmm…"

_ And the pink tip of her tongue poked out from the corner of her mouth, where her lips curled with concentration once it was her turn to paint her mother's nails. Toes were always tricky for Mikasa. Trickier than hands. Sometimes, she painted outside the lines and colored Mama's skin. Still, no matter how smudged or clumsy, she never failed to gasp loudly and declare that she'd done a wonderful job. "They look beautiful," she told her with a peck on the nose. "You did great." _

"…Hm-hm-hm… hmm, hm-hmm..."

_ Her alabaster neck stretched out long, pride filling her eyes as she gazed down at her daughter and cupped her chin to lift it high. She called her beautiful, like she always did, and smoothed a tendril of damp hair away from her face. The door suddenly burst open with a violent boom. The two towel-wrapped females jumped, exclaiming in surprise. Then Papa shouted, "What are you two doing?!" and Mama hurled the shampoo bottle at him to make him pay for the scare. _

"…Hmm, hmm… hmm, hmm…"

_ And they laughed. They laughed so hard when the thing hit him in the head with a solid  _ plonk _. His eyes grew so wide, Mikasa threw her head back with a wild fit of laughter that nearly sent her tumbling back into the tub. Mama, sitting on the toilet, dodged Papa's apologetic kisses and tried swatting him away, ruining her nail polish in the process. Mikasa doubled over, trying not to wheeze. Her parents would join in on her laughter. Giggling, she'd shield her face from their questioning stares. Papa's face was just too funny. They'd never get the joke. _

"…Hmm… hmm…"

Then she stops.

Because now there's something… clawing at her throat. It feels painful, like her esophagus is twisting into knots. Swallowing tightly, she gazes down at her nails, checks if they're dry enough for the day to continue. They're not. They glisten with wetness. A dark, crimson color. A far cry from the pinkness of her childhood and her mother's toes.

Is this what growing up has done to her?

Vibrancy has waned and shades dimmed and shadows turned pale and flickery. Everything's lost its color. Things that meant the world before mean nothing now. Things that never provoked a blink of worry now induce long nights of sleeplessness. Pink has turned to blood red and voiced songs are merely hummed now. Even the ring around her finger—the more she looks at it, seems tainted by her adult-ness and loses more of its sheen. Nine-year-old Mikasa would be very disappointed at all this, at what she's made of herself. Her gaze is corroding. It takes life, not gives it. That's what growing up has done to her. That what the years have made her become.

At what point did it all start? At what age was it that things began to lose their luster and magic dwindled into skepticism? Once upon a time, anything was possible. Now, everything has changed. A twenty-five year old soul bemoans the greatness it once was, a tarnished spirit longs for its old purity.

Maybe that is why she clings so much to the past. Back then, things made perfect sense. Right now, even the silence around her is filled with a tinge of madness. She'll drive herself crazy one of these days. She'll think herself into insanity, at the route she's going. Silence isn’t peaceful anymore, and neither is a bustling sea of noise. Company or not, she's constantly being tugged this way and that and no matter what, no matter what she tells herself, no matter how hard she tries to calm it all down, there's always that point in which this inner turmoil rips wide open, and all the ugliness the years have brought her bleed out. She's her own worst enemy. Nothing destroys her the way she destroys herself.

With a small breath, Mikasa reaches over for the book she set aside on the sink, desperate for yet another distraction. It's  _ Illusions, _ the book Eren let her borrow. And it smells like him. Like his home. The pages rich with lore and memory.

Slowly, she opens the small book, careful not to get any nail polish on it. As soon as the pages spread open, her gaze is met with some fluorescent-like streaks upon the worn, sepia paper.

Eren's little highlights on random bits of the book.

The sight draws forth a smile from her, however faint, and a warm fondness spreads inside her heart. He must've read this book about a thousand times. Through his life, she's known him to own several copies. So the fact that she ended up with one whose pages are bent and worn and highlighted makes her feel, perhaps, special in a way. Like he gave her a personal relic of his being. Funny how books can carry so much of a person.

She started re-reading the book only yesterday, having put it off due to feelings of dread but eventually capitulating out of both curiosity and boredom. Armin used to say that you never read a book the same way twice. Mikasa herself has lost count of how many times she's scoured the novel's pages in search of the new, cultivating from the old something fresh and fulfilling. But its 192 pages can only offer her so much.

She always thought it funny that a book so simple and small could be Armin's very favorite, since the boy was famous for memorizing entire encyclopedias and reciting them by heart. In her whole life, she's never known anyone more fond of books than Armin. Books were his aliment, and he was always starving, craving more. To crown  _ Illusions _ as the sole greatest piece of fiction he'd ever come across, was like a hungry carnivore callings vegetables the greatest sustenance.

Oh, how much he'd talked about that damn book. So much so, that eventually both Eren and Mikasa caved in and gave it a shot. Eren wasn't really all that impressed with it, she remembers. Mikasa had thought it delivering at best. But Armin clung on to its fruits like an emaciated child. It wasn't until years later that they both learned to do the same.

And now it's sort of their thing, this book. The band that ties them all together even if they're far apart.

Flipping through the pages, she scans for traces of Eren's handwriting or stains of use. She doesn't really find any, only highlights and squiggles and the occasional doodle on a random page or two. Still, she admires them, marveling at the timeless marks. How old was he when he'd made them? What was going on in his life? Where was he? What was he doing? What were his thoughts?

She can almost make out the features of his face frowning in concentration, the reading glasses that he always hates to wear fixed over his eyes, his fingers coiling around a highlighting pen to drag it over the words that impact him. Did he have the scar on his palm before or after reading this particular book? She can't tell. The neat, neon lines indicate that either they were drawn during a time when it wasn't there, or when it had healed completely. The pages give hints of long years of good use. It's impossible to guess whether those years amount to six or less or even more.

_ To six or less or even more… _

Mikasa's gaze drifts to a blank point in space.

It's Christmas today.

That means that exactly six years ago today, she left him.

She closes her eyes, sighing with the realization. No more. No more thinking. Why can't her mind just be still and leave her in peace for once? Uneasiness simmers within her. Then panic. Then dread. So much dread. She's always feeling fucking dread. Why must she be alone today? Why  _ must _ Jean be at work? Why can't she be with Armin and her parents and her loved ones and be safe? Why? Why? Why?

_ Stop it. _

Stop it, Mikasa. Stop it right now.

Clenching her jaw, she trains herself into a state of practiced numbness. She's had to do that a lot lately, she notices. Like when she was with Eren and had to run to his bathroom after mere minutes of being with him to calm herself down. She breathes, counts to ten, then holds her breath and starts all over. She does this until she's the master of herself, and her emotions no longer rule her. Only then does she dare to open her eyes again. Even the darkness behind her own eyelids haunts her nowadays.

With a deep inhale, she swallows a large gulp of the book's smell. Earthy, citrusy, musky. Him. Old pages and old friends. The tale of a messiah that refuses to fulfill his role because he believes people have the capability of saving themselves. An atheist's favorite book. Her window to the past and who she wishes she was in the present. All of it contained in the confined spaces of a single body, a single book. And before the clawing in her throat can begin to resurface, there's the rattling of keys and heeled footsteps upon a hardwood floor, a call of her name that makes her heart lurch and her feet hop to the ground with a start.

Jean's home.

**—o—**

God only knows why she agreed to do it, but she did. The frozen water bottle he holds to his cheek stings him nearly as bad as his arm does. Maybe Annie just felt bad for causing him so much pain today (on Christmas, no less) and thus surrendered and said yes to playing his girlfriend—but not until she had him sputtering an explanation to the matted floor with his arm bent behind him. Again.

Jesus. Women are far too unpredictable. He knows Annie. He knows her well. But even four years of friendship aren't enough to prepare him for one of her fists flying straight to his face. Groaning, he slides the icy plastic of the bottle down his cheek, pulling Annie's gaze to him.

"So about this girlfriend thing," she tells him, twisting her damp hair into a bun. They're both showered now and clean—but Annie didn't want to let him go yet, asking him to meet her outside the females' locker room where the refreshments bar is at. He sits on the countertop, his duffel bag plopped on the floor below his dangling feet, peering at her from the corner of his eyes as she stuffs her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.

"Mhm," he prompts for her to continue. She's quiet for a second, attempting to smooth her fringe out of her face but it finds its way back over her eyes again anyway.

"It's only while we're around her, right?" her tone is tinged with a drop of worry. Maybe she really does feel guilty for punching him and nearly dislocating his arm. Maybe she's just apprehensive about the whole ordeal of pretending to be his lover. The latter is perfectly understandable, he must admit.

"Oh, yeah," Eren nods, wincing when the water bottle digs into his bruise. "It's just while we're around her, that's all."

"What about the others?"

"I'll tell 'em. They'll play along, I know they will."

Annie's quiet again. Staring out into space. Frowning—but that's just her face, really. She's got that sort of neutral expression that gives the impression that she's either awfully bored or terribly pissed at something.

"Do I have to kiss you?" For a second, he thinks she's joking. But the stern look in her eyes indicates she's not.

"No-ho," he laughs, slightly taken aback by the question. "No, Annie. I wouldn't do that to you."

"Hold hands?"

"Nope."

"So nothing lovey-dovey."

"Just stare into my eyes like they're the most beautiful thing you've ever seen and we should be set."

"You're ridiculous," she sighs, shaking her head. "This isn't going to work, you know."

Eren sighs too, pulling the bottle away from his face. The whole right side of his face feels numb now, tears of frigid water trickling down the warmth of his cheek before he dabs it away with his shirt sleeve. "It will," he assures her. "Trust me. I know her. I know how this girl works."

"You really think everyone will help?"

"Yep."

"Even Hitch?"

"Even Hitch."

"I highly doubt that."

He holds a finger in the air, piercing her gaze with his own. He looks awfully chipper for a man who just got punched in the face.

"I have a plan."

"Oh, no." Annie shrugs when he glares at her. "I'm just saying, Eren. Every time you have a plan, things usually don't end well."

"Okay, well, this one's gonna work."

She doesn't really know what to say to him, so she eyes the red mark on his cheek. Guilt is an emotion she tends to try hard not to feel. But she's got to admit, maybe punching him in the face was a little uncalled for. She couldn't help that it's been drilled into her reflexes to react defensively when abrupt advances are made. But this is  _ Eren _ . Eren, her friend Eren. He would never do anything to take advantage of her and she knows it.

Perhaps it's that underlying feeling of faint (very faint, okay) guilt that pushes her to make his presence linger, or perhaps it's the simple loneliness that comes with Christmas day, but she keeps talking; for the sake of keeping him around a bit more, for the sake of figuring out what's going on inside that mind of his.

"Hitch texted me the other day talking about her." It's not a lie. But she didn't have good things to say about the girl either, so perhaps mentioning this wasn't the wisest choice.

But it makes his eyes dart to her face, his attention setting itself like a large weight on her features. What is it about today that makes him look so young all of a sudden? He speaks with the excitement of a child when he asks, "She did?"

"Yeah."

"What did she say?"

Nothing pleasant. "That some random girl showed up at your place and you kicked her out because of that. Oh, and that you're pretending not to have a phone around her for some reason." Plus, she called her scarf girl. And bitch. And twat. (But Annie won't mention that.)

On her end, the air's starting to feel a little unsafe and awkward, like she's meddling with his personal affairs. But Eren sets his gaze downcast with a smirk, breathing out a chuckle. He's weirdly cheery today. Sorta. Definitely a lot more alive than she's used to seeing him, anyway.

"Ye-up."

"Why?" She can't help it. Curiosity seems to get the best of her today.

"To lure her into coming to my apartment," he admits, shrugging. "That way she has an address, not a phone number, and the only way she can find me is by seeking me herself. Anyways, it worked, so…"

"So you're playing her."

"I am not," he doesn't even seem offended by her comment.

"What's she like?"

And there's that kid-like excitement in his eyes again, that vibrancy in his voice that makes him sound ten years younger.

"The girl?"

"Yeah."

"Ohhhhh, man," Eren sets the bottle on the counter beside him, and if she thought he looked younger before, now he comes to life like a fucking firecracker.

Sometimes, Eren doesn't really have filter. Okay, no, that's all the time. But sometimes are worse than others. He talks and talks and doesn't shut up until you stop him, words spewing out of him the instant they pop into his mind. Usually, this only happens when he's unnaturally passionate about something. But Eren is a passionate man, and when things move him, they move him profoundly. Annie, however austere, can be patient with him at times. So when he blurts out speech worthy of the pope's envy, she listens in with mild reverence and awe.

"She's unlike anything," Eren starts, and the second of silence that follows is as fleeting as the smile that curves his lips. (And since when does he smile like that? Since when do his eyes glow that way? Since when?) "She's like, such an odd mixture of things, Annie. I don't even know. Like, she's quiet and somber but at the same time she gets these bouts of talkative-ness where she doesn't shut up. Then she gets embarrassed afterward and recoils into herself like she regrets giving away so much. Her sense of humor is the weirdest thing in this planet, I swear. She won't laugh at anything unless it's some silly trivial thing like the noise a wet sponge makes when it hits the floor. One solid  _ splat _ and she'll be peeing her pants and doubling over with tears in her eyes. She spaces out a lot, but at the same time she's got eyes like a hawk and ears like an elephant. You can't fool her, and don't even try to lie to her because she'll see right through you like glass. Sometimes she'll hum to herself and sing under her breath, and if you catch her doing it she gets mortified and turns bright red. That's another thing. She's like, a fierce blusher. She's got the pinkest cheeks you will ever see. When she's not pale as fuck, she's pink as fuck. Also, sometimes she wheezes when she laughs too hard and it's really funny. And she has the softest sneeze. It's so fucking weird. She sneezes like a kitten. And her voice. Man, her voice. It's seriously the calmest thing ever. You will never hear anything more soothing, I swear to god. Even when she's angry, it's still calm. I don't know how she does it. Plus, she has, like, this  _ air _ to her, you know? Like the presence of a queen or some shit. People snap their fucking necks looking at her when she enters a room—and she never notices! She's sharp as a knife but when it comes to certain things, she's completely clueless! She doesn't notice when people are admiring her, as if she doesn't genuinely believe that they would have any reason to. Plus, she's good at like every single thing she does. Give her a sword and she'll be a damn samurai in seconds. When I was little, I used to have this theory that she had a lot of past lives that stuck with her through this life and that's why she knows so much and is good at everything. She's such an old soul. It's crazy. But then she has the most childish habits at times too. I don't think I'm making any sense right now, but you get what I mean. Also, she doesn't look it, but she could kill a man with her bare hands. It's kinda hard to believe when you see her—I mean, someone that passive should not be able to beat the shit out of someone until they're on the brink of death. BUT SHE CAN DO IT! I've seen it! She has the most delicate-looking hands, but they've broken noses like you wouldn't even imagine. She has the worst jokes—and I mean they're absolutely  _ terrible _ —but her smile is so pretty, it makes up for every punch line missed. And her eyelashes are like a mile long, Annie. When she cries, tears get caught on them and they clump together like spider legs. She's always pulling her hair behind her ears, but somehow it still always manages to get all over her face. Did I mention she has the cutest little nose? That's probably why her sneezes are so tiny. It's so small. And pointy. And she does this thing where she only shrugs one shoulder and—"

"Eren."

Breathless, he looks at her, swallowing a small slip of air to regain his breath. "Yeah?"

Annie's nearly gaping at him. Never in her entire four years of knowing him has she ever heard him talk about a girl like that. She's even a little sorry she asked!

"I mean what is she like _ physically, _ " and she prays his answer's shorter this time.

"Oh." He laughs at himself. She's not sure whether the redness growing in his cheeks comes from talking too fast or from embarrassment. "Shit. Right, okay. Um, well, she's tall-ish. Kinda. Sorta. Whatever. And she has really pale skin and really dark black hair. Eyes like the night sky, but still kinda gray. I guess it depends on the day or something, but sometimes they're darker than ink and other times they're shiny like silver. She's got the rosiest lips. She's Asian—well, half Asian, anyway. And, uh…"

Silence descends.

Sometimes, in the middle of his words, Eren just kinda drifts off, like his mind's just recalled something tragic. And then he stares blankly into space. And then the familiar warmth of his features melts away. And then Annie's left wondering, what's wrong with him? What's wrong?

His thoughts drift to when she'd been in his apartment. Mikasa herself. _ Mikasa _ . He still has a hard time believing it. It's like that entire day had been a conjuration from his mind, a sad reality his desperation fathomed. But she was truly there, and he really did talk to her, and she really did promise to come back. Really. She did.

_ What's she like physically, Eren? _

Well, she is the single most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Everything about her is so beautiful it hurts him. Her voice, her hands, her eyes, her lips, her face, her body. Her heart, her soul, her mind. The thoughts that consume her marvelous brain. She's quiet and gentle like the water's surface of a lake, but within her there's a depth that twist and churns like a typhoon incessantly. It never stops. It never stops spinning. Physically, she is deceiving. Her calm eyes will make you think she may be apathetic, but she feels everything so raw. Unless you look in deep enough, you will never know it. She's not one to voice herself and lay all out on the table. She's the type of girl you gotta _ find _ . A pain in the ass sometimes, yeah.  _ But she's so gorgeous. Gorgeous in every way. _

_ What's she like physically, Eren? _

Well, now she has a spacious gap between her thighs. Her hair's so long it touches the center of her back—which is fucking crazy. The underwire of her bra protrudes beneath her shirt when she stretches—as do her ribs. The soft swells of her breasts sway with the breaths that undulate in her chest as they pour out of her lungs. In and out, she breathes. Her existence is so silent sometimes you forget she's even there—and your mind races, searching for her, because she's always just a feeble blow from flying away and never returning. And physically, you know you need her. Her air's addicting. She's got this soft, sweet smell that fills you up like oxygen. She's got these hands that feel like silk on your skin. She's got a gaze that makes you realize that one look can steal a lot more than you thought: your breath, your strength, your character. She's like a rose with thorns. Mesmerizing, endearing, but you'll hurt yourself if you grip her too tight.

_ What's she like physically, Eren? _

Well, her mouth is pert and small and opens slowly when she sighs worriedly before making her way to his bathroom, and her shoulders are stoic and tense and shake when her phone rings and she's in the wrong place to answer her fiancé's call. And those jeans she now wears, that she wore to see him—they're expensive and form fitting. He'd be lying if he said he didn't relish in the way they'd fit her, because even though she's so much thinner now, and he's so perturbed by this, his eyes did flitter down more than once,  _ way _ more than once, and an internal groan formed at the pit of his being because _ fuck, _ her ass looked so good in them.

"Anyway," he clears his throat, stopping the thoughts before they worsen, "you'll know when you see her, 'kay?"

"Do I even want to know what your relationship with her is?"

"No," he answers wearily, closing his eyes. "You don't."

"I won't ask, then."

Good, he thinks. Because the last thing he needs right now is to think about Mikasa Ackerman—more than what he already does, anyway. But Annie's still standing there, with her hands in her pockets, that neutrally-bored-and-pissed-off look on her face.

"You look like you wanna say something," he says, unscrewing the cap on the water bottle to steal a sip of whatever ice has melted inside. Annie, with her bright blue eyes and flaxen hair and sharp features, meets his gaze and parts her lips to speak.

_ Are you okay, Eren?  _ she wants to ask.  _ Because sometimes you go quiet and I worry but I don't know how to ask you what you're thinking and I feel like something's wrong. Something's always wrong with you. You just know how to cover it all up, I feel. And I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. _

Maybe if she were someone else, someone braver, she'd be able to voice the words that itch and scratch at the tip of her tongue. But she shoves them back into her mouth, her throat, and instead tells him, "About this whole girlfriend thing…"

After his second sip, Eren nods. "Yes."

"Why do I have to act like your girlfriend, again?"

"Because this girl's just… Okay, this is not gonna make any sense."

"Just tell me."

He sighs, like he's bored of the topic or just doesn't want to keep talking about it. But he's not the type to leave a conversation unfinished, or words unsaid, so he explains, "So she has a fiancé, right? She loves him. She'd never do anything to hurt him. He's the one she goes home to and the one she wants in her life."

"Okay..."

"The thing is, being with me—due to the nature of our odd relationship which I really just don't want to talk about right now—will—and I know this for sure—make her feel like she's being unjust to him. You know, being with a man he doesn't know or wouldn't necessarily approve of."

"Why wouldn't her fiancé approve of you?"

"Again: odd nature of our relationship."

"I'm guessing she's an ex."

"No. Even worse."

"Ex- _ wife? _ "

He shakes his head, pulling a face. "It's complicated."

"I see. Anyway, it's none of my business."

"Thank you."

She'll let the topic go. She will. But she needs to say this one last thing. Just—

"So, as far as I understand, the reason we need to pretend I'm your girlfriend is because it will give her a sense of security somehow. Like, 'oh, he's with someone so he won't try to get with me'. It makes her feel like she's not doing anything wrong—or anything you're not doing yourself, anyway. It's a no strings attached sort of thing. A psyche trick."

Eren opens his arms like he's about to hug her, but the man's much smarter than that. "You see?" he smiles. "This is why I love you."

"But why me?" She hopes she doesn't sound as surprised, flattered, disturbed and appalled as she actually feels. "Why not ask someone else to play your girlfriend?"

"You were the first person to pop into my head," he replies simply, with a shrug of a shoulder to top it all off. "Plus, I already described you to her. There's not many short blonde girls I know besides, well, you."

"There's Historia," Annie notes, making her way to stand right beside him. She's awfully close to him now, closer than what they're both used to being, leaning against the counter just by the side of his leg. But Eren doesn't seem to notice this. He keeps talking, making faces like he always does.

"Who's with Ymir. Do you want her to kill me?"

"True."

And they fall into silence again. Eren turns his neck to look down at her, and when Annie lifts her gaze to catch his, she sees that the bruise on his cheek is turning a bit purple now. She feels so bad. She could just bury her face in shame and start crying. He's always been so good to her, and she responds to his one request for a favor by punching him in the face.  _ God. _

She thinks he'll say something to her. But he doesn't. He just kinda stares at her for a while, looking at her eyes. Like he's trying to make out patterns in their color, find a familiar face, a reflection, a memory, something. She's about to ask him what he's doing, but he snaps his gaze away, staring blankly into space again, like her eyes reminded him of something haunting. What is it about their color that would do that? Would it be their shape? The fact that they're so cool and blue and lifeless?

And—holy shit. Is Annie actually feeling self-conscious right now?!

"Anyways, I should go," he breathes, and he's hopping to his feet before she can even process what he's just said. He slings the strap of his bag over his shoulder and gives her a tiny grin. "Thanks for your help, and remember: look into my eyes like they're the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. That's it. That's all you gotta do."

It takes her a moment to realize that he's leaving. "Oh." And maybe she still wants him to stay. Maybe. But all probabilities of this are swiftly shot away by her usual sternness.

"Will you do the same to mine?" she'd meant it as a tease. But Eren retaliates in a way that's almost intimidating, leaning in so close to her their noses nearly touch. She stands her ground, however tiny she is, and doesn't even flinch when he tells her, "Ah, but yours already  _ are  _ the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"You're a sap."

"You love me."

"So you think."

"Merry Christmas, babe."

"Don't."

It hits her that she's going to pretend to be this man's girlfriend. It hits her that he's turned to walk away. It hits her that she doesn't even know what being a girlfriend  _ is _ in the first place, let alone why her heart momentarily flutters when gravity pulls her back to the ground once he peels himself away from her and leaves her floating in the air.

Seconds before disappearing out the door, he spares her a glance over his shoulder and says, "I'll see you at the party tonight!"

"You won't!" She's almost embarrassed at her tone of voice. But the doors swing shut in his egress and the latch clicks loudly with the resonating impact his presence always leaves behind, and then silence fills the empty space where he once was.

Annie doesn't think he heard her.

**—o—**

Champagne is such a fascinating drink. The bubbles look like teeny spheres dancing in a sea of crystalline pink, twirling in flawless pirouettes as they race their way up to the top and die with a muted burst of radiance.

Mikasa didn't know champagne could be pink. But Mikasa doesn't drink. Ever. So her fiancé spares her a plethora of teases when she remarks being in awe of the drink. He kisses her nose, tells her she's "the cutest thing in the world, baby.”

Her eyes linger on the bottle of Moët Rose sitting idly on one of the snack tables, right behind the platters full of cheeses and crackers and chocolate covered strawberries and sandwiches and macaroons and cookies and  _ god _ those chocolate covered strawberries look really good—but okay, no, she has to control herself, so no, don't look at that. Look at Jean. Admire your fiancé. Yeah. Good girl. Don't stare at the chocolate. Don't do that. Bad.

Her palms sweat. Her hands tremble. Mikasa's nervous tonight, and with good reason. God only knows who half these people are. Most of them bear faces like masks, shifting expressions every few seconds and flapping their mouths like puppets conversing in shrill, comical tones. Her thin fingers curl around an extravagant champagne flute, which she carries around solely to wet her lips and give the impression that she's drinking.

Suddenly, her other hand's stolen by her fiancé and he drags her through the theatrical crowd, looking to introduce her to someone new, someone whose name she certainly won't remember and who certainly won't remember hers.

But parties are all about giving the impression that you're interested. They're about how well you look, not how well you are. And perhaps that's what makes them so damn boring. Two solid minutes into smiling and nodding and linking her arm through Jean's, and she's lost from the conversation, gazing at the fine decorations around her, admiring the Christmas lights that twinkle on the walls and the grand chandelier that hangs from the ceiling and looks straight out of a movie. Blah, blah, blah, people keep on spewing. Blah, the stock market. Blah, someone's nose job. Blah, they cheated on their spouse. Blah, and she's not sure what they're talking about anymore.

She brought the book Eren let her borrow in case of boredom—or maybe as sort of safety blanket really, because it's not like she can actually sit alone in a corner and choose to read it by herself in here. God knows people will stare and whisper more than what they already do, and today she doesn't have the patience, or the strength, to bear through any more of that.

Mikasa fixes a tendril of hair behind her ear, but it slips over her face again anyway, so she lets the imperfection be; a carefree rebel in all her conscientiousness.

Her hair's pulled back in a sleek ponytail, the ends marceled to a large curl, hanging amid the center of her upper back—which is exposed, due to the low plunge of her dress's backside.

Her dress tonight is unlike anything she's ever worn out in public. The coal-colored fabric clings to her shape, not too tight so that it looks painted but still snug enough to fit like a glove. The neckline's tailored like a choker; the center front part narrow enough to show some collarbone but still wide enough to conceal most of her chest. The sleeves are not only non-existent, but they're practically greedy too. Some chunks of fabric seem to be missing on either side of the dress's bust level, eaten away enough so that some ribs and a slither of side boob break out like a plague. The back of the dress dips with a minx-like tease and ends just above her lower back, covering the small dimples she has there but still shaping her ass in its entire (and not very impressive) form. The hem nearly touches the backs of her knees, but slits open at the front to reveal a little more of her legs, resembling the very push-and-pull play she's always battling with herself. The dress isn't totally risque but neither is it utterly conservative. It hides enough to leave something to the imagination but reveals ample to drive a man mad. It's no wonder why Jean suggested that she wear it. Plus, it goes well with the diamond earrings he got her today as a gift, and the silver, studded bracelet around her wrist (also a gift), and the ankle-strap Gucci stilettos with the clear vamp and chrome heel she's wearing and silently praying don't break her ankles because shit, they're tall (a gift too, by the way).

The air smells like fancy tuxes and Chanel No. 5. Men's watches reflect light like Christmas tree ornaments and women's lip-glossed smiles glisten like lacquered chinas set on large dining tables. Laughter rings like soulful music and the boasts of wealthy men inflate the jolly holiday spirit with thunderous laughter, their meek wives tagging along like obedient tails and showing off the gifts proudly bestowed upon them by their husbands. So much life around her and yet Mikasa could not feel more alone.

It's the crowded places that always feel the loneliest.

Outside the tall windows, city lights blur and sing like a chorus of small children. Some flicker, some burn, all of them like stars undisturbed and unclouded by falling or accumulated snow. Snowless Christmases are the worst. Really. But there is something hopeful about the way those little lights shine, how they're tiny and distant and diaphanous but shine brilliantly and with purpose, granting her, in this lonely night, a sense of guardianship somehow. If she wanted to, she could count them all. One, two, three. Green, blue, golden. But there are thousands of them, it seems. And soon they blur into little specks and lose their magic, dispersing, fading, perishing under her gaze.

Jean notices her spacing out. A hard kiss on the cheek brings her back to him.

"You okay?" he asks her, his coppery eyes melting into her ebony-silver ones. She nods, opening her mouth to say something. But what would she say? Nothing important. So she clamps it shut and offers him a soft smile, closes her eyes to his touch when he smooths that one rebellious lock of hair away from her face, successfully securing it behind her ear this time.

For a second, she thinks he'll hold her face and tell her something. Opening her eyes to meet his gaze, she thinks she sees the lights' colors reflected in him—green, blue, gold. But then she realizes that she's searching for things that aren't there, that he can't give her. Jean pulls his hand away from her and downs a swig of his own champagne, resuming the conversion with the people around them as she stares at the way his mouth moves and forms words she isn't hearing, pulling chuckles out of men she feels are no longer there. After a few seconds, he reaches for her hand, interlocks their fingers and kisses the engagement ring before shooting her a questioning look, which she meets with a reassuring curve of the lips, and he follows with another sip of his alcoholic beverage. Moments later, her eyes are on those strange little lights again, and they look so close yet so out of reach, optical illusions that are merely painted on a screen.

Green.

Blue.

Gold.

They shimmer.

Pine.

Lemon.

Wood.

She inhales.

_ Welcome home, Mikasa.  _ Welcome home.

Earthy, citrusy, musky. Channel No. 5 and lacquered grins. Hot chocolate with whipped cream and Creed Royal cologne mixed with Old Spice. Sepia book pages and roasting fires fused with pink champagne and the expensive smell of brand new stilettos. Home and home. Familiar and familiar. Old and new. Dizzying and overwhelming and before she knows it, Mikasa's squeezing Jean's hand to gain his attention.

"I'm gonna go for a walk," she tells him, leaning in so she can speak under her breath. Jean furrows his brows, blinking at her.

"A walk? But baby, it's cold outside."

She smiles at the uncanny resemblance to the 1950's Frank Loesser song. "I'll be fine," she assures him, and after scrutinizing her for a moment, her fiancé rolls his tongue in his cheek and nods.

"Alright. Be safe. Call me if anything."

"I will."

"And take my coat." He taps the bottom of her chin with a curled finger. "It's warmer than yours."

Quickly, Mikasa nods. "Okay." And turns to leave him.

As she goes, questions begin to arise. Excitement starts to flourish. Her new found autonomy inquires: Where will she go? What will she do? What will she make of this snowless Christmas?

But her fiancé's clutching her hand before she can take one full step away from him. She thinks he'll stop her. She thinks he'll tell her to stay with him instead.

But no.

"Hey," he whispers, bringing a hand up to actually hold her face this time, to actually reflect the glow of all those little lights when he coruscates, "I love you."

Relaxing into his touch, Mikasa closes her eyes one final time.

_ I will be a good fiancée. _

_ I will be a good wife. _

_ I will be a good mother. _

_ I will be happy. _

"I love you too, Jean."

And she means it. She means it with all her heart.

**—o—**

Eren hates taking out the trash.

And to make matters worse, the bag he carries out to the front of his building is not only filled with shit (not literally), but also with one some random stranger's puke (yes, literally puke). Why he let the girls coax him into carrying it out is beyond him—but part of him understands that it's because he's the only sober one here tonight, the only one not vomiting or blubbering or flirting with girls whose faces he'll regret waking up next to tomorrow. It's nearly midnight, and there's not an ounce of alcohol in him yet. Yet.

Fleetingly, he processes that there's no snow outside tonight. That sucks. Not because he likes snow but because Christmases that are destitute of it tend to recall events in his life that aren't very pleasant.

Even more fleetingly, he thinks of the girl. You know which one. The one with the rosy lips and dark black hair and tiny nose and shapely ass. Chuckling to himself, he throws the trash bag atop a pile of more trash bags for the garbage people to pick up in the morning. Haha. Shapely ass. Ha! God, he's a twelve-year-old.

His springy mind, however, stalls when he thinks of what day it is today. Today marks exactly six years since the night Mikasa left him. Not that he's counting. But he is.

He wipes his hands on his jeans, as if that alone is enough to clean off the grimy feeling of carrying someone else's garbage and puke. He can hear music coming from Hitch's apartment, accompanied by the laughter and chatter of all his friends. Someone's screaming at the top of their lungs about chugging an entire vodka bottle in one go. It's probably Ymir. He can't tell. Everyone's talking over one another and shouting dares at whoever's offering to down an entire bottle of Grey Goose. Maybe he should go back up and tell them to quiet down before the cops come with a noise complaint. Or maybe not. Maybe he'll just grab a smoke. It's cold out and he didn't bring his coat but he can bear through it. Right? Yeah, he can. What the hell. Why not? Nobody's missing him. The lighter's in his back pocket and the cigs are—

Wait.

A shape takes form in the corner of his vision.

Eren whips his head to look. 

He's imagining it. He's sure of it. It can't be. It's too soon.

But he knows that figure. He knows it too damn well.

He knows that hair color and that body and that click of heels on cement. And so many people in the world have light skin, and dark eyes, and black hair, and long legs, but he's so certain of what he's seeing—maybe not with his eyes, but who can explain the vibrant flutter in his being? The swarm of butterflies that tug at his gut? The sudden light that nearly blinds him and the gasp that pries his lips apart? It's a sight he recognizes with his soul. It's her.

It's  _ her _ .

The name resurrects on his tongue like an atheist's hopeful prayer, a divine declaration that quenches the parched, cracked earth of his heart. Uttering it feels like the sun on his skin after years of endless winter. And that's how he knows for sure that it's her he's looking at. Because who else? Who else ever makes him feel this way? There's only one name, one beacon, one lighthouse that points him straight home:

"Mikasa?"

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you to all that read, promo, reblog and leave me kind messages. You are the reason chapters keep coming out of this fic. Much love, and until next time!


	8. Every Petal on My Flower Crown Was a Smile on My Lips

Kids at school weren't very nice at all.

During the first week of fourth grade, Mikasa had officially been dubbed “Chicken Curry” by her classmates. The reason? It was beyond her. Certainly, there was nothing about her that resembled the dish. But a lot of things were beyond Mikasa's comprehension, unfortunately.

Lots of names were hissed at her ( _ new girl, chink, Chinkerbell, rice ball, slant eyes, gook, Jap, ching-chang _ , just to name a few) and she knew what none of them meant. The oddest name thus far—even weirder than Chicken Curry—was  _ gink _ , a cruel mixture between “gook” and “chink” that made her cringe whenever any of the kids pronounced it. She didn't need to understand what any of the words meant. The leers on the young faces that mocked her were enough to show that none held good meanings at all.

Teasing wasn't the only thing the kids did to her, though.

Through the span of a few short days, their name-calling increased to acts of blatant cruelty. A group of girls, led by a fourth grader named Sarah, were particularly keen on making Mikasa's life a living hell. They began by denying her access to the bathrooms, standing in a straight line like a wall to block her way.

“Excuse me,” Mikasa had said when she first encountered them. “I would like to get through.”

The girls, especially Sarah, all snorted loudly and laughed in her face. Mikasa's heart shot up to her throat, for she'd lived in the woods long enough to understand when things meant danger. It was like a sixth sense that she'd acquired from going hunting with Papa. When an animal is cornered, their fear fuels a primal need to flight or fight. Mikasa though, had a gentler soul. Patiently, she waited, swallowing her fear with one big gulp. She stared at the girls right in the eyes, to show that they didn't own her.

“She talks funny,” one of them said. Besides that, they chose to ignore her, and that's how it went. They just stood there, refusing her access to the restrooms and pretending she wasn't there until she gave up went away. At first, Mikasa used to stand and wait patiently for them to budge. They never did. Once, she even tried to force her way through them. But they sneered and lunged forth threateningly, looming over her small frame like dark shadows so that the unvoiced message was very clear:  _ You are not getting through us. _

They liked to make her life impossible, simply for the pleasure of it all. And thus, blocking her way to the bathroom was how their quest began. They did it so that she was forced to humiliate herself and use the boys' restroom or find the other bathrooms on the school's opposite wing, but the latter would result in her being late to class, which was punishable, so Mikasa simply chose to hold it in until school hours were done. She was oddly resilient like that, the girl. Even at such a young age, she wore a stoic expression when suffering through pain, not once giving away her true feelings.

Her school locker was next.

They would manage to lock it on the inside somehow, so that her books were all kept inside and Mikasa would, once again, face the danger of being late to her classes. Getting teachers and janitors to help her unlock the thing usually ensued a mild commotion and a lot of explaining on her part, a lot of questioning from adults, a lot of doubt in the principal's eyes. And so she took the memo and compromised. She began to carry all of her books to her classes. Every single one. They were very heavy, but Mikasa was strong.

Then it was her lunch.

It began to disappear mysteriously. With nothing to eat during the day, Mikasa endured torturous hours of hunger. She began to eat large breakfasts at home, avoiding Mama's gaze when she happily handed her a freshly prepped lunchbox, knowing deep inside that the contents were to merely vanish during the day and into another child's stomach.

She'd scarf down copious amounts of toast and pancakes and cereal and whatever Mama would fix that morning. She even questioned her once, and Mikasa explained that it was probably because of ballet, because she was growing, because her appetite was increasing that she needed to eat so much. She never mentioned her true trifles. Mama wouldn't be pleased at all. So she lied. Mikasa lied to her and Papa. And sadly, these large breakfasts didn't hold out for very long.

During the last few periods of school, Mikasa had a tiger growing in her belly. It roared and grumbled. The longer she went without eating, the louder it roared. The louder it roared, the more the children laughed at her. The more they laughed, the better Mikasa became at ignoring them.

And recess? Oh, it was a nightmare.

Because Armin was still feeling ill, he was absent from school for nearly three whole weeks. During that time, Mikasa didn't have anyone to sit with at lunch or to play with during recess, having made no friends besides him. And it was during recess that kids were the cruelest. After all, they had all that free time.

Her path to the bathroom was blocked regularly, but one time during recess, she managed to sneak in when nobody was around, only to find  **_GOOK_ ** scribbled on the bathroom mirrors with pink lipstick. It had to be done by Sarah. No other kids ever carried makeup around but her.

And you know what Mikasa did? She wiped the pink gunk away. Dampening some toilet paper, she dragged it over the letters until all that was left was a blurry mess. Through the smudged paint and wet clumps of paper, she'd caught her reflection in the mirror and gawked.

_ Gook, _ her own face seemed to whisper back to her.  _ Gook. _

Her small eyes closed, chest expanding. No, she told herself. She was so much more. She was more than their words. Mama always told her she was important. Papa always said it too. And they were right. Mikasa was worth much more than what all those mean kids were saying.

But how does a nine-year-old genuinely believe that?

With a full bladder and no desire to relieve it anymore, Mikasa left.

She was alienated her from the rest of the group on a daily basis. She heard kids whispering about her everywhere she went, huddled close together and howling like evil little hyenas. _Slant eyes. Chink. Chicken Curry._ _Chinkerberll,_ like Tinkerbell but a chink. Even the walls began to seethe these names out to her. _You are different. You're not their race. Nobody in this school likes you because of that._

How could such small children harbor so much hate? It was baffling.

Unfortunately, Sarah's little crowd reigned over everything, even the small park behind the school so that when Mikasa tried to claim a swing for herself, or use the slides or monkey bars, she was promptly pushed away and shooed off like a pesky little flea. That's all she was to them, a flea. Ugly. Tiny. Squashable. And they all treated her as such.

The teachers never noticed their abuse, or perhaps they merely chose to ignore it. Mikasa regularly wondered: do they not see what all of them do to her? Do they not care that she's pushed off by the others for no reason at all? Is there no one here to help her?

And what about God? Why did Kami allow all of this to happen? Wasn't school supposed to be, as Papa had once put it, “fun”?

For the first few days of fourth grade, Mikasa sat on a bench all by herself and counted down the hours, the minutes, the  _ seconds _ until school was over and it was time to go back home. Whenever she found herself in this position, she daydreamed, she sung lullabies under her breath, she consoled herself with nature's music, listened to the trees breathe around her and got lost in their wise, ancient songs. She thought of home, her  _ real  _ home, and ached for it. What she wouldn't have done to be back in the woods again…

Luckily, though, her school allowed children to be in the library during recess, so she began to skip the period altogether, spending her time there with nothing but her own company and her books. That was enough. That was more than enough. Mikasa didn't really mind loneliness. It had been her constant companion her entire life.

What she couldn't deal with was isolation. When children threw objects at her or tried to trip her in the halls or called her chicken curry in front of a chortling crowd, she wasn't really sure what to do with herself. She didn't know how to act around people to begin with, let alone mean people. She just kind of… balled her hands a bore through it. Just like that. Completely on her own.

A naturally reserved child, Mikasa told no one of the bullying she faced every single day. She endured it all in silence, developing coping mechanisms to help her through the torture: whenever she really needed to go to the bathroom and the other girls wouldn't let her, she'd play a game of perseverance, like that game where one sees how long they can last holding their breath. How long could she last holding in her necessities before she felt that she would pop? One day, it was two hours. Another, it was four. Once, she came so close to peeing herself that she had to run to the nurse's office and lie about having to puke, so that she was allowed to use their private restroom and relieve herself there.

When her arms became sore from carrying all her books, she pretended that she was carrying Papa's freshly cut firewood instead. If she persevered long enough, soon she would make it to their cabin home and help Mama prepare the fire for her to cook and make herself warm. Home was replaced by her classes, and firewood was actually the bulk of many books, but Mikasa was always very good at pretending. And so she did.

Whenever the kids called her names, she would close her eyes and count to ten (sometimes twenty) until their contempt didn't affect her anymore. It was like dealing with needle stings. Eventually, the hurt would pass, the names would melt away, and she could focus on more important things instead. Like her books, and daydreaming. Mikasa _ loved  _ daydreaming.

The library became her sanctuary in a way. It was no wonder why Armin loved books so much. They granted escape. Lost in the limitless spaces of their pages, Mikasa Ackerman was safe. Nobody could hurt her there. Nobody could bother her.

“Don't you wanna play with the kids outside?” the librarian had asked her one day when she was drawing.

“Nope,” Mikasa replied nonchalantly, dragging a crayon meticulously across the page. She hadn't mentioned that she didn't feel like having dirt thrown at her that day, or that she'd had no lunch to eat, or that earlier that morning Sarah had mouthed “bitch” to her while passing her down the hall (the b-word was a big no no in her household. Mama always pinched Papa's arm whenever he said it out loud), and Mikasa didn't even know what that word meant! But she did know that it was bad, and that Sarah hadn't been whispering it to her with good intentions—especially since the kids beside her all started to laugh.

The authorities rewarded her general obedience in school by allowing her to spend her days in the library all by herself, holding in her pee, starving. All of this in utter silence, all of this beyond their notice, yet right under their noses. None of them saw her suffering. None of them helped her. She was completely on her own.

In the library, there was a large window overlooking the playground outside. This was her window to the outside world, her link to those that weren't alienated or abandoned. Her eyes would survey the distant figures whenever she grew bored of her books, and many times, they caught glimpses of the boy who'd been kind to her, his name, Eren Jaeger, reverberating furiously in her heart. And in her soul she'd feel the startling need to reach out to him, bring herself to him in some way. But he was always busy, that boy. If he wasn't screaming at the tops of his lungs like a total crazy while playing tag or something of the like, he was running around kicking a soccer ball, or getting lost somewhere with his friends. He was constantly surrounded by people. Mikasa blamed it on his dimple. That dimple. It drew people to him like dumb flies.

He never spoke to her after the first day of school, when he'd stood in front of the entire class and shown her kindness. Eren never even glanced her way after that. His mind was far too busy, and Mikasa was too invisible—even to his bright, sharp eyes.

The thought depressed her, but it was true. In that school, she was nothing. He probably just did what he did that day on a whim, because he felt like it, had an itch. Or maybe he had done it because Armin told him to. Or because he wanted to feel better about himself. Or he'd been dared. All of these were possible. For all she knew, he may as well have been mocking her too.

But then, one day, he surprised her.

Out of nowhere, Eren suddenly appeared in the library, claiming to have to return the books his absent friend Armin had burrowed. The familiar name made her head shoot up from her coloring book. The familiar face she saw made her heart forget a beat.

Eren didn't even acknowledge her, but this didn't stop her from questioning:  _ Armin? His books? Return them? _ But why would he send Eren to do it and not her? Armin knew she spent her days at the library. She'd told him this while dropping off his homework one day after school. So why did he send Eren?

As a nine-year-old, Mikasa had a lot of thoughts. They clouded her judgment sometimes.

This was one of those times.

To avoid Eren, she arose from her seat and ambled along the library in search for a new book to read. It was all just for show, really. To get away from him, to run from the feeling of fondness she felt blooming for him in her heart. Feelings she didn’t like, didn’t feel like accepting.

She walked in circles, hiding behind the large bookshelves until she was sure that the boy was gone. Eren had the sort of presence you felt in the air around you, so she didn't even need to check to see if he had left. It felt easier to breathe all of a sudden, thus indicating his egress. Mikasa scurried back to her seat, returning to her coloring book and her crayons.

That was when she saw it.

A paper bag sat curiously by her books. It felt almost like an illusion, conjured from thin air. Tentatively, she approached it, and when she brought herself to peer inside it, tears welled up in her eyes.

Mikasa cried.

There was food inside.

The paper bag rustled as she snuck in a hand to rummage through its contents. There was a sandwich in a small zip-lock bag, an apple, a pouch of Capri Sun juice, and a note. Slowly, the small girl plucked out the crumpled letter and smoothed it out. Through the tears and the bewilderment, she read it:

**_For Mikasa Ackerman ._ **

**_I'm sorry that peapol in our school suck. You can have my lunch. I hope your not alergic to peanut butter becose if you are then that sucks. I'm sorry. Don't die please. I don't want to be responseble for your death._ **

**_PS. I asked my dad for lunch money . It's okay._ **

**_PPS. I hope your not alergic to grape jelly either._ **

**_PPPS. Or bread._ **

Beads of salt water breached the slit of her eyes and rolled densely down her cheeks, leaving trails behind that dampened her skin a shade darker. Whether she wept from happiness or sadness, Mikasa did not know. She had seen the handwriting only once before, scrawled wildly on a chalkboard in front of a rowdy crowd of children, drawn beautifully and disastrously beside the shy, neat letters of her own name.

It was Eren's.

**—o—**

That afternoon, there was no tiger in her belly.

Mikasa hadn't eaten the contents of the bag immediately, instead just stood there crying and hiccuping for a moment before wiping her tears away. Sniffling, she sat back down, and stared at the bag, contemplating. Ten whole minutes passed before she brought herself to bite into the apple. It was crisp and juicy. Delicious. She ate all of it except the core.

And then she bit into the sandwich. She could tell that Eren made it himself, because something about the way the peanut butter and jelly were apportioned seemed clumsy and uneven. There was too much peanut butter and not enough jelly. An adult would have known to distribute both spreads evenly. Still, it was yummy. Perhaps it was all due to the hunger, but that uneven, clumsy sandwich was the best thing she'd eaten in days.

Once the juice pouch was sucked dry, she disposed of the bag, but kept Eren's little letter. She must've stared at the thing for the remainder of recess, until the bell rang and it was time to go back to class.

_ Apples or Pears? _

That was the question she was met with in art class.

Mikasa had been sitting in her seat, working on her assigned drawing, when she felt a gentle nudge on her elbow and saw a folded note slipping into her peripheral through a gap between her torso and her arm.

Confused, she took the note and turned around to face the person who had given it to her. She didn't know the kid. Suspiciously, she looked around him. Was this some sort of joke? Had somebody put him up to this? The rest of the children were working together in groups, so she was the only one sitting by herself, and it was just the kid and her when his eyes spoke for him and he nudged his head to the side to direct her gaze in that direction.

For an instant, Eren's eyes met hers.

But then he promptly pulled his gaze away. He was working in a very large group, talking loudly with his friends and laughing so that she was left frowning for a moment, wondering if she'd imagined the look they both had shared.

“It's from him,” the kid whispered to her, leaning in so close she could smell his breath. Mikasa furrowed her brows in an odd mixture of elation and confusion.

Eren sent her that note?

Eren sent  _ somebody  _ to give her that note for him?

_ Really? _

It was just… weird. Nobody had spoken to her since she'd first come to the school, save for those who taunted her and now this odd child. For a moment, she marveled at his face, at how close he was to her, and debated whether his sudden appearance was just another one of the children's cruel tricks.

There was no way that letter could be from Eren. But then again… he had given her his lunch that day. He had been kind. And he hadn't done it directly, no. He'd done it when she wasn't looking.

Eren's back was to her. He was laughing at something one of the kids in his group said.

“Eren sent me this?” she asked the mysterious child. He nodded and prompted for her to open the note.

Her eyes shot to Mrs. Ral. She was busy doing paperwork, her attention fixed on her grown-up, teacher stuff. A prick of worry bloomed in Mikasa's heart. If she were to open the note and find something atrocious, the teacher would not be able to see the expression on her face. What if it was so bad that it shocked her, or made her cry? Isn't that what all of the kids wanted? Her tears? Her demise? For them to conquer her?

Maybe they all knew how she felt for Eren.

But… how  _ did  _ she feel for Eren?

Mikasa opened the damn note, finally, deciding to find out once and for all what was inside it.

**_Apples or Pears?_ **

What.

She blinked and turned to frown at the child behind her. “What's this?” she whispered. “I don't understand.”

“He wants to know,” the kid whispered back, “whether you like apples or pears more.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. But I'm not supposed to return without an answer. So answer him.”

Mikasa squinted her eyes, piecing it all together. Eren was asking her about the lunch. So it really  _ was _ a note from him! He really  _ did _ send it to her! This was her chance to write him back and thank him and tell him everything like how yummy the sandwich was and how apples aren't really her thing but the one he gave her today was totally delicious!

Turning back around, she ripped a blank sheet of paper off her notebook and wrote. The kid, whose name she did not know, waited quietly behind her. Once she finished scribbling, she folded the paper a couple of times and handed it to him. “Make sure he gets this.”

The boy gave her a nod. “Okay.”

And then, just like that, he stood up and left her.

Mikasa returned to her drawing, never once looking up for fear that the eyes she'd meet would not be kind. After all, nobody else in the class was very nice to her. So she drew, her dark eyes glued to her work before her, unaware of the teal-green ones that beamed as soon as they read the letter she had sent.

She didn't see the way Eren stared at her, how he shook his head and pocketed her note, the faintest of smiles spread over his features. He had that sort of smile that you  _ felt  _ too, that reached out of him and touched you. So her back prickled under his gaze, her skin tingled where his eyes scrutinized her.

_ Apples or Pears? _ he had asked her. She heard him laugh—that fruity laugh of his—at her reply:

_ Chocolate, please. _

**—o—**

The floodgates had opened.

Sighing in bliss, Mikasa closed her eyes and relieved herself in the grubby McDonald's bathroom her mother and her frequented every day before ballet lessons began. It was near the studio, about a single block away, and Mama had made a habit of preparing Mikasa for her lessons in the bathroom before buying her a snack.

The tiny hiss/liquid dribble of the child urinating were the only noises occupying the bathroom as her mother waited quietly with her arms crossed over her chest, a hairbrush in one hand, hair spray in the other, patience and curiosity both mingling in her gaze. She fixed her daughter in a rather ambiguous expression, tapping her fingers on her forearm in deep thought.

Mikasa peed for a solid minute.

Mama furrowed her brows.

“Do you not use the bathrooms in school?” she queried, her accent dripping thickly through some of her words. Mikasa occupied herself with rolling toilet paper around her small hand, deliberately avoiding the look Mama was giving her.

“They're dirty,” she murmured the best excuse she could think of—which wasn't all that great. Mama's frown grew deeper, but Mikasa averted her eyes and focused on finishing up instead. The toilet flushed, as did the rest of the conversation, as did her confidence under Mama's hefty gaze.

The tiles on the walls were yellow and stained with grime, and she stared at the perturbing, unhygienic sight whilst Mama pulled her hair back into a neat little bun. Once she was in her tights, leotard, and slippers, and her face had been splashed (read: attacked) with water to, as Mama claimed, “freshen up”, they both shared a large order of chicken nuggets with sweet n' sour sauce and ate in relative peace. When Mama had asked how her day in school went, Mikasa had taken a moment to really weigh the question.

“It went well.”

“Did it really?”

“Mhm,” and then she shoved the remainder of a half-eaten nugget into her mouth to avoid further conversation.

Mama stared at her with her graceful, slanted eyes; her eyelashes the same exaggerated length as Mikasa's, but only shooting straight down instead upwards so that the only time anyone really got to see their impressive length was when she blinked. Mama was full of these hidden beauties, relics that could only be found with close attention and time. For example: at a distance, any person with functioning eyes could see that Mikasa's mother was tremendously beautiful. But it was up close, when the sheen of her hair shone brightest and the pallor of her cheeks glowed and her laugh lines indented severely with the faintest of smiles, that one could truly see that the woman was  _ gorgeous _ . And although small in stature and quiet in air, Mama possessed the fierce strength of a mountain. It was no wonder why Papa always called her the most beautiful woman in the world. Mikasa had been living under her wing for nine years, and still her radiance bewildered her. Her own mother!

_ Gook, _ a voice crooned from somewhere in her mind.  _ Your mother's a gook. _

_ Gook. _

**_GOOK._ **

“Are you sure, honey?” Mama said suddenly, pulling her from her thoughts. Mikasa shoved another nugget into her mouth, shifting in her seat. Her feet swung back and forth in the air, legs too short to reach the ground below them.

“Yes, Ma. Today was good.”

She was never a very good liar.

Warily, Mikasa swallowed her food, and tried not to think of the fact that she'd just been untruthful to Mama, for she always felt the inevitable fear that she could read her thoughts. (Adults could already see the future, chances were they could read minds too.)

Then, she thought of how the kids at school sometimes treated her. She thought of how Sarah and her crew blocked her path to the bathroom and laughed in her face. She thought of how she'd gone to her assigned cubby to retrieve her lunchbox, already knowing that the contents were gone. She thought of her locker, which stood vacant somewhere in her school, locked from the inside. She thought of how her arms felt sore, how she'd had to find a secret spot in the library to hide all her books to be able to retrieve them first thing tomorrow morning.

But then she thought of Eren.

And she thought of his voice, how the words  _ for Mikasa Ackerman  _ would sound like when released from his lips. How his laughter would puncture holes into the air when she explained to him that one can't be deliberately allergic to grape jelly, or bread, and then those holes would fill with the smile that would claim his face, and spread to hers, and indent that tiny, impossible dimple on the corner of his mouth. The more she thought about it, the more he reminded her of a prince. He just had that sort of regal presence that made everything he is reverberate on the hearts he'd touched with little to no effort. She thought of what Armin would say if he knew she was thinking of Eren this way. He'd probably laugh.

Mikasa cleared her throat.

She was chewing on her fifth or sixth nugget when she peeked up at Mama, who was watching her with tenderness in her eyes. “What?” she asked, still chewing.

“Nothing,” her mother smiled warmly. “I love you.”

“I know.”

“You nervous for ballet?”

“A little.”

“You'll do great. I know it.”

_ Mama, what's a gook? _ she nearly asked her, but something in her heart told her not to. Keep it a secret, it advised. Don't ask her anything of the sort, for she certainly would not like it.

Mikasa cleared her throat again.

She itched with the need to recount the events of her day. She wanted badly to tell her mother of how she'd been saved, how a boy had made her smile when she'd been feeling lonely. How, incredibly, she's returned to her seat in the library to find  _ lunch,  _ and a written note from him. But her heart, again, told her to keep that a secret, for then she would have to explain how her lunch had been stolen in the first place, meet the silent fury that would burn in her black eyes. No, Mikasa decided. Better not to say anything at all.

She ate the rest of her meal in silence, until her belly was so bloated she felt that she could barf. Mama chided her gently for over-eating, and Mikasa didn't mention that the poor peanut butter and jelly sandwich she'd had for lunch had spiked her appetite more than what she'd anticipated.

Once in the car, however, the words accidentally slipped out.

“Mama, what's a gook?”

It was as if somebody had slapped her upside the head. Her mother raised her head and peered at her through the rear view mirror. With dire seriousness, she spoke.

“Where did you hear that word?” There were creases around her lips from how tightly she was pursing them.

“Someone said it in school.”

“Was it to you?”

“No.”

“Mikasa,” it was like a boulder crashing onto cement. Her name brought her eyes up to look at her. Mama, as predicted, wasn't pleased by the question at all.

_ Poop _ , Mikasa thought, biting her tongue.  _ I knew I shouldn't have said it. _

“Who called you that, Mikasa?”

“Nobody, Mama.”

“Mikasa…”

“I was saved.” Just as suddenly as the words had shot out of her mouth, her mother balked, caught off guard by her answer.

“What did you just say?”

“A prince. He saved me.”

“A prince?” Mama frowned. She seemed confused, offended even. Like Mikasa had just talked back to her in an attempt to quarrel—something that she never did, and that certainly wasn’t allowed in her household. She knew better than that.

“Mhm,” she breathed, looking out the window. She could feel her mother's gaze on her, feel her confusion. But Mama was a very patient person. She swallowed, staring out at nothing for a moment as if collecting her thoughts. Then she cleared her throat, looked at her daughter through the rear view mirror again.

“How?”

“It's a secret.”

“Mikasa—”

“It's a secret.”

Her poor mother was so dumbfounded that her face was even comical. She blinked her eyes rapidly as if there was something in them and shook her head. Her mouth opened to say more, but a single glance at the time deviated all objections and replaced them with a raised finger pointed at the child and a menacing, “This conversation isn't over.”

And they drove away. Mikasa daydreamed.

**—o—**

Eren brought her chocolate every day. He didn't allow for a single recess to go by where Mikasa didn't have a homemade lunch to eat. She didn't expect him to keep the daily ritual, since she discovered that he was—believe it or not—quite shy.

Yes. Eren Jaeger, when it came to certain things, was the shy type.

He gave the lunches to the librarian, so that she would pass them on to Mikasa later in the day. “It's from Eren,” she'd tell her, a smile dusting her lips. “Thank you,” Mikasa would reply, turning her head to find the boy through the library's window, immediately recognizing the distant specter of his body, the messy, disheveled head of brown hair and the legs that flickered to and fro, flashing at lightning speed beneath him and kicking a soccer ball about. She'd seen him trip over them once and fall flat on his face. Mikasa had laughed to herself, quietly. She realized, that when it came to Eren, she was always laughing or smiling.

_ Eren Jaeger _ .

There was something fierce about his name, something strong, and she knew that it was more than his acts of kindness that made it linger in her spirit. It was his eyes, his smile, the dimple that she'd seen only a handful of times. It was… him. All of him. Eren as a whole. That _ ' _ s what fascinated her.

Each day, he brought her a different kind of chocolate. Some days it was milk chocolate, others it was dark chocolate, mostly it was just whatever he could get his hands on: Mars chocolate bars, Snickers, Hershey's Kisses, yada-yada. Mikasa never once complained, except for when he stopped writing her notes and slipping them into her lunches. The meals felt barren without his voice captured in his handwriting. She wondered why he did that, why he no longer sent her little letters with her meals. Not that it bothered her for long, though—there was chocolate that needed to be eaten.

Gradually, the sandwiches' quality improved. Instead of peanut butter and jelly, they became BLT's, turkey sandwiches, tuna—he even left her a meatball sandwich once. She ate them all, suspicious, contriving a plan to thank him for the sudden upgrade, but she never found the courage to deliver her own dare. For some odd reason, Eren felt as distant and impossible to reach as if he were a king, and her a lowly commoner. His lunches, the different types of sandwiches and chocolates, were the only interactions they had with one another for what felt like a long time: Eren benevolently—absently—providing her with food, and Mikasa spiritually—and also absently—thanking him for it.

It was one cloudy afternoon, when she couldn't find him playing outside that no lunch had been delivered to her. Mikasa would be lying if she said that she hadn't felt disappointed—but not because she had to go through the day without food, but because she'd discovered that Eren had been absent. The entire school felt empty without him there, without his screams and his laughter and his dirty soccer ball shooting through the air. The walls grew taller and the sunlight dimmed and the circus of life around her paled in her indifference. What was the joy of school without Eren in it? The answer was simple:

There was none.

The next day, though, she received a paper bag containing her lunch. There was extra chocolate inside, and a written apology.

“It's from you-know-who,” the librarian smiled, her old eyes crinkling with a silent, motherly joy that reminded Mikasa very much of Mama. Her young eyes crinkled also, and she hastened to read the note as soon as she noticed the slip of paper folded inside.

**_Sorry about yesterday. I had to take care of my mom._ **

_ It's okay, _ Mikasa whispered in her heart.  _ Please don't be sorry, Eren.  _ She wished that she was braver. Brave enough to corner him in school, to verbally thank him for being this kind to her. But Eren was constantly surrounded by those that bullied her, and their presence always cemented her feet to the ground. How could a commoner approach a king when he had an army? An angry army? A battalion that despised her for no reason at all? Vermin, gook, chicken curry. Who was she to approach him in any way? To them, she was no one. And she couldn't help but feel this sort of humiliation stain a blotch in her own self-esteem.

That same day in art class, however, when she was busy working on a painting by herself, she received another note. It had appeared out of nowhere, and her stomach tightened when she realized who the note was from.

**_How are you?_ **

Eren.

Boom, boom, boom. 

Her heart pounded.

She held her breath for a moment and looked around. Eren's back was to her, as usual, but he sat only a seat away, surrounded by his usual crowd save for Sarah. He was so close! Within arm's reach! How come she hadn't noticed him approaching? How come she hadn't sensed him in the air? All heads were bowed and submerged in their work, including Mrs. Ral's, so Mikasa was quick to scribble an answer and fold her own note before handing it over to him.

Her heart felt like it might explode, it was beating so fiercely. She reached out, very slowly, and tapped Eren on the back of his shoulder. Electricity sparked where the tip of her finger met the fabric of his shirt and felt the skin, the muscle, the bone that laid beneath.

Eren turned to look at her. His eyes were calm and green and blue and gold and so, so bright.

Mikasa swallowed. Hard.

Then handed him the piece of paper.

Eren took it without uttering a word, and then turned right back around to read it. Some small heads lifted to peer at him with curiosity. He ignored them. Mikasa did too.

_ I'm good. How are you? _

From the corner of her eye, she could see him scribbling down his answer. His arm moved quickly, scrawling his words down so feverishly she could hear the scratch of his pencil rasping the paper with the ferocity of his words. When he was done, he folded his note, shot a quick glance at Mrs. Ral to make sure she wasn't looking, and then slipped his arm behind him and held the note out for Mikasa to take.

She was quick to retrieve it, quick to unfold it, even quicker to skim her eyes through his handwriting.

**_Fine. How was the chocolate? I told mom to give you extra today._ **

Scribble. Fold. Check on Mrs. Ral. Deliver.

_ It was good. Thank you. _

Scribble. Fold. Check on Mrs. Ral. Deliver.

**_Anything else you mitewant?_ **

Scribble. Fold. Check on Mrs. Ral. Deliver.

_ You mean for lunch? _

That is how their note passing went, until Mikasa's mild uneasiness at the odd nature of their practice subsided and she felt excitement swelling in her chest. She was talking to Eren! Through notes, yeah. But it was better than nothing, right?!

**_Yea silly._ **

Scribble. Fold. Check on Mrs. Ral. Deliver.

_ No thanks. I'm happy with my lunches. _

She waited for his answers with the shadow of a smile on her lips.

**_I'm glad your happy._ **

(Eren did too.)

_ Thank you. _

**_If you ever want anything just tell me. I know that Armin being absent means that you spend lots of time alone._ **

_ He's sick. It's okay. _

**_Why are peapol always sick? I hate it._ **

_ I don't know. I hate it too. _

**_I'm sorry._ **

_ For what? _

**_For Armin being sick and leaving you all alone._ **

_ Don't be sorry. I like being alone. _

**_Relly?_ **

_ Yeah. _

**_Don't you feel sad when your alone?_ **

_ No. _

**_I do._ **

_ Why? _

**_I don't kno. Being alone usualy makes me feel sad._ **

_ Not to me. _

**_Cool._ **

_ Thank you for the big sandwiches. They keep me full all day. _

**_I'm glad you like them. Mom makes them. All I know how to do is cereal._ **

_ That's fine. You told your mom to make me sandwiches? _

**_Actualy, making you lunch was her idea. She's been doing them from the start._ **

_ Really? _

**_Yup._ **

_ I thought you were the one making them. How? _

**_How what?_ **

_ How did she know my lunch was being stolen? _

**_I told her._ **

_ Why? _

**_Becose I felt like it._ **

_ Okay. _

**_Sorry it just slipt out of me. I tell her evrything._ **

_ It's okay. I think it's very kind of her. _

**_I'll tell her you said that. She'll be glad._ **

_ Actually Eren there's something more I would like from you. _

**_What is it?_ **

_ Tell your mother I say thanks. _

**_Will do._ **

_ Should I make her a flower crown? _

**_She would love that!_ **

_ Okay. I'll bring it to school sumday. _

**_I'll make sure she gets it!_ **

_ Eren. _

**_Mikasa._ **

_ One more thing, okay? _

**_Sure._ **

She stared at her own note for a very long time before standing up to discard it in the trash can. With that, their interaction ended that day.

_ Please be happy _ , read the note Eren never received.

**—o—**

Ballet, mixed with school and homework, was utterly exhausting.

Papa was away on a business trip, so it was just her and Mama for a few days. Her mother had let go of the conversation they'd had a few days prior, and Mikasa had hoped that perhaps she'd forgotten all about it. But that was not the case, unfortunately. Her mother's memory was more acute than that.

It was one day, when they were on their way home after ballet lessons, that Mama brought it up again. And even though Mikasa's head bobbed and her eyes drifted off and the sun no longer brightened up the sky, her mother absolutely  _ grilled _ her, begging for the specific names of the people who called her names. Mikasa didn't remember whether she'd murmured the answers truthfully or not. Her feet ached and her back and legs were sore from rigorous hours of dance practice. (They'd focused on doing splits that day. Who knew splits could be so exhausting? And to think she still had three pages worth of math homework to do.  _ Barf. _ )

“When your father gets back from his trip, I am going to tell him,” Mama said, in her subtle Japanese accent that sometimes made her sound angrier than what she appeared to be. “I'm not happy with these kids calling you names. Is that all they do?”

“Yes, Mama,” Mikasa had lied, far too tired to resume the conversation. “That's all.”

“Hmm. Still, I'm telling him.”

“Yes, Mama.”

She muttered something in her native language, shaking her head. Mikasa rested her head back on her seat, closing her eyes and praying for slumber. It was another fifteen minutes before they made it home, so she thought a nice, short nap would do her well. “ _ Kusokurae, _ ” she heard her mother say. She didn't know much Japanese, but she'd heard those words enough times to remember them.  _ Eat shit _ , they meant. Mama was talking about the bullies.

Mikasa giggled quietly, sleepily, smiling because Mama made the funniest faces when she was mad. Under the weight of anger, her expressions were unnaturally severe for a woman as calm as her. Scary. Like her head might implode.

She wondered if Eren's mother made such funny faces too. And did he laugh at them?

**—o—**

**_Mikasa._ **

_ What? _

**_Why did the chicken cross the road?_ **

_ To get to the other side. _

**_WRONG!!! It was actually a duck and then you killed it because you know how to kill ducks._ **

_ Very funny. _

**_Okay your turn._ **

_ What's a fish without an eye? _

**_What?_ **

_ A fsh (because eye and i sound the same get it?) _

**_Oh my god._ **

_ It's better than your joke. _

**_It's horrible._ **

_ Still better than yours. _

**_Mikasa._ **

_ What? _

**_Knock knock._ **

_ Whose there? _

**_Old lady._ **

_ Old lady who? _

**_Old lady who!_ **

_ I don't get it. _

**_Say it out loud._ **

_ No. _

**_Do it. You'll get the joke._ **

_ No we're working. _

**_If you don't do it I will._ **

_ Don't you dare. _

**_Do it._ **

_ No. _

**_Five._ **

_ What are you doing? _

**_Four._ **

_ Eren. _

**_Three._ **

_ Eren no. _

**_Two._ **

_ Don't do it. _

**_I'm gunna._ **

_ Please no. _

“ _ OLD-LADY-WHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! _ ”

“EREN JAEGER!”

“Hah?”

“What do you think you're doing, child?”

“Yodeling, ma'am.”

“And did I give you permission to make such an atrocious noise in the middle of your assignment?”

“No, Mrs. Ral, you did not give me permission to yodel so atro-ruptly or whatever.”

“Then why are you yodeling?”

“I got the sudden impulse to do it, ma'am.”

“Get back to work, Eren, and don't do it again. You're distracting your classmates.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ral.”

_ Oh my god I can't stop laughing. _

**_Me niether that was really funny._ **

_ I can't breathe. I'm going to explode. Her face was so funny. _

**_I know. Demon eyes, rite?_ **

_ She looked like she was ready to kill you. _

**_Like you with the ducks._ **

_ Eren stop making me laugh I'm gonna pee myself. _

**_But your laugh is so funny. Are you wheezing?_ **

_ Peeing! _

**_OH NO!_ **

_ Just kidding but seriously stop. _

**_Mikasa your face is red._ **

_ Because I'm trying not to laugh! My poor bladder! _

**_Careful you don't actualy pee yourself Ackerman. Sarah and her gang are watching you rite now._ **

_ Poop. _

**_That too._ **

**—o—**

Her father came home on a Thursday,  _ way _ after dinner had been served. Mikasa was bathing when she heard the front door open and Mama talking softly, followed by a deeper, more baritone voice. She gasped when she recognized it, whispered, “Papa!” before hurrying to wash off all the soap suds from her hair. Butt naked, she hopped out of the tub to get dry and dressed herself quickly, leaving some of the buttons in her pink pajamas undone.

A few short seconds later, and her bare feet were thumping on the wooden floor all the way to her parents' bedroom, where she swung the door open without knocking and threw herself on the bed beside the giant lump beneath the covers that suggested Papa's presence. She dipped her small frame underneath, poking her father's calves with her toes and making him groan drowsily. She didn't care if he was tired or sleepy from work, she kept poking and nudging until he turned around to lay on his side and face her. Papa pulled the bed sheets up over their heads, kissing her nose, smirking when she responded by giggling. He motioned for her to be quiet so that Mama wouldn't hear them from all the way in the bathroom. Mikasa nodded, then giggled again.

“Hello, princess.”

“Hi, Papa.”

“How was school today?”

Her eyebrows pinched together in thought. Well, today, Eren had sent her notes and he'd also given her extra chocolate, Sarah was absent, and for the first time in a very long time, she was finally able to utilize the school bathrooms. Her lunch was stolen, yes, but lately, Mikasa was feeling grateful for its disappearances, since the misfortune is what brought Eren closer to her in the first place, so…

“Well...” she breathed. Her father noticed the faint blotches of red that flourished on her pasty cheeks when she told him, “It was great.”

“Really?” he asked, pinching her cheeks and smiling as she recoiled from his hands, snickering.

“Yes!”

“Hmm,” he hummed, twirling his fingers into her damp, knotted hair. His blond eyebrows came together, a small crease denting the skin between them. “Your mother told me about your troubles in school. What's this about kids calling you names?”

“Some of them call me chicken curry, Papa.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, that's a weird name to call someone.”

“I know,” the girl sighed, wrinkling her nose. “I don't even like chicken curry.”

Papa was silent for a long time, thinking. The light of the lamp that lit her parents' room filtered in through the pale bed sheets, making his eyes look even softer, even more honey-colored than what they already were. Slowly, Mikasa raised a hand to his cheek, holding the side of his face and closing her eyes to the feeling of his skin, of his prickly, sprouting stubble. She listened close to his breathing.  _ Papa,  _ sighed her heart, content. He was there, he was in front of her. Sometimes, Mikasa missed him so much that she felt like she could die. What importance did bullies have when she lived in a world where Papa existed? How much did their opinions of her matter when she had her father to love? They didn't, they held no importance at all. With him, she was safe, she was whole, she was tremendously happy.

“Mikasa,” the man whispered, and she suddenly adored the sound of her own name. To hell with the kids at school that make fun of her for being named after a battleship. Her name was _ awesome _ . Whenever Papa said it, it made her feel strong. “Listen. Don't tell your mother, but if any of those kids call you bad names again, you have my full permission to punch them.”

“Really, Papa?”

“Yes.”

“In the face?”

“Square in the face.”

She smiled. “Okay.”

He smiled too. “Perfect.”

And their giggles swirled around them in the air. Before she knew it, Papa began attacking her face with such forceful, fervent kisses that Mikasa couldn't help her loud, high-pitched squeal.

“What is going on?” her mother called from the bathroom. Her father's fingers were now digging into her ribs, tickling her so furiously Mikasa flailed and screamed between her laughs.

“Nothing!” Papa called back, the bed sheets cascading down the sides of his head and making him look like a nun as he knelt over his daughter's squirming body, fingers working wildly at her sides. “The princess has arrived to the castle!” he exclaimed over her frantic shrieks. “Hear ye, hear ye! She has come to make her presence heard!”

“Mama!”

“What's that, your highness?”

“Mama! Help me!”

“She calls for the queen! The queen has been summoned!”

“MamaaaAAAA-AHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“Queen! Queen, you must help her! She's under attack!”

“Be gentle with her, Charles,” Mama said calmly as she walked into the room, unaffected by her daughter's cries of misery. She continued to fiddle with her earrings, placing them on the bedside table as Mikasa extended her arms to her in vain, tears forming at the corners of her eyes while she wheezed.

“Do you surrender, your highness?”

“No!”

“Do you yield?”

“Never!”

“Then you must pay the price for your stubborn ways!”

“Charles,” Mama sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to them. “If she pees herself, I'm going to be very angry.”

“Princesses don't pee their pj's!”

“I'm gonna!”

“Charles.”

“Say it.”

“HAHAHAHA I CAN'T— HAHAHA— I CAN'T BREATHE!!!”

“Charles, let her breathe.”

“I surrender!”

“What's that?”

“I SURRENDER!!!”

“She surrenders!” Papa shouted triumphantly, scooping his daughter up in an embrace. “The princess yields!” Their laughter erupted in the air as they fell back and wrestled on the bed, disturbing the mattress under the force of their bodies. Mama rolled her eyes at them. “Animals,” she muttered to herself, her body bobbing in the waves they were producing, the hint of a smile on her lips.

“Gotcha!” Mikasa grinned, pinning her father down on the bed. Compared to him, she was tiny, weightless. But Papa faked a pained groan and wailed, “Oh, no! She's captured me! I have underestimated her strength!” Mikasa was giggling too hard to keep up her intimidation act. She wiped at the tears in her eyes, her ribs sore from Papa's tickling, her cheeks aching from laughing and smiling so hard.

“Mikasa,” her mother crooned, rising from the bed to go into the bathroom and fetch a hairbrush, “time to brush your hair and get ready for bed, sweetie.”

“Awww,” she whined, pleading eyes peering down at Papa. “Can I stay here tomorrow? Please?”

“Not a chance.” There was no debating it. Papa's eyes were sad when they met hers again.

“Sorry, baby,” he told her. “But we'll do something this weekend. I promise.”

“Okay,” the girl nodded, relinquishing her hold on his wrists. She went to hop off of him, but his hands came down to cradle both sides of her face, turning it to him.

“Now, what's this about a prince?” he asked her. Mikasa's heart stopped.

“A what?”

“Your mother told me you were saved,” Papa smirked, waggling his eyebrows. “By a prince, eh?”

For a beat, she opened her mouth as if to say something, but her thin lips sealed together and she rolled off of her father and bounced off the bed, declaring curtly, “Bye, gotta go.”

Papa laid still for a bemused second. “Wait, what?”

“Goodnight. Love you.”

“Wait! Come back!” he sat up on the bed, his hair a total mess. “Where are you going? You're not going to tell me?”

“I'm sleepy. Bye.”

The door slammed shut behind her and she left. Seconds later, Mama returned from the bathroom with a hairbrush in her hands, gawking at her husband with an expression that was just as lost as his. “What happened?” she asked him. Charles shook his head.

“I have no idea.”

**—o—**

**_Mikasa._ **

_ Yes? _

**_Snickers or reeses?_ **

_ Snickers. _

**_Okay. Mom wanted to know becose we're going grocery shopping. How was lunch today?_ **

_ Great. Thank you. _

**_Your welcome._ **

_ Sorry I don't have your mama's flower crown made yet. Ballet and homework are taking over my life. _

**_That's okay lol. Take all the time you need._ **

_ Lol? _

**_What?_ **

_ What does that mean? _

**_Oh my god you dont know what lol means?_ **

_ No. _

**_It means long onion legs._ **

_ WHAT!!! _

**_Yep._ **

_ Onions don't have legs!!!! _

**_I know that's why it's funny._ **

_ Okay. _

**_Okay._ **

_ Have you talked to Armin lately? _

**_I havint. You?_ **

_ Yeah I saw him yesterday. He's feeling better. He'll be back next week he said. _

**_Good. I relly miss him._ **

_ Me too. _

**_How's balley?_ **

_ You mean ballet. _

**_Same shit._ **

_ Don't cuss. It's good. How's soccer? _

**_Sorry. Same as always. Have you killed any ducks lately?_ **

_ No. Have you learned any new songs on your guitar? _

**_I wish._ **

_ I'm sorry. _

**_It's okay._ **

_ I think the teacher is noticing us passing notes. _

**_We should stop._ **

_ Yeah bye. _

**_See ya!_ **

**—o—**

 

“Mikasa, are you happy?” Mama asked her one night when she was tucking her in for bed. The question had taken her off guard, made her eyes linger on her mother for a moment.

“Of course, Mama,” she frowned, yawning. Ballet had been particularly hard on her that day and she was very tired, but in Mama's eyes was something she'd never ever seen before. “What's wrong?” she asked her mother, placing her small hand on the woman's slender thigh. Her mother sighed, but forced her prettiest smile, tucking a raven lock of hair behind her ear.

“Nothing,” she whispered, leaning forth to kiss her daughter on the top of her head. “Mama worries sometimes, is all.”

“About what?” Mikasa queried, blinking up at her as she pulled away. “Why do you worry, Mama?”

“You're too young to understand, sweetie,” she dismissed, sitting upright on the edge of her bed and smoothing an imaginary ruck she'd made on the covers. “But I worry about your happiness.”

“My happiness?”

“Yes, your happiness. I want to make sure that you are content, that every day of your life, you feel joy and are filled with a profound sense of purpose.”

“Oh.” Mama was right. Mikasa was too young to understand, for she had no idea what the heck she had just said to her. “Hmm,” she hummed, blinking sleepily. She couldn't fathom where Mama was going with all this, but something told her that smiling would make her feel better. So she did. Mikasa faked her prettiest smile too, squeezing her mother's hand to get her attention. “I'm okay, Mama. See? I'm smiling.”

“You are indeed,” her mother noted, caressing the side of her face, “but sometimes I wonder: are you smiling on the inside, too?”

“On the inside, Mama?”

“Is your heart happy? Do you smile in your soul?”

She thought hard about the question. “I think so, yes.”

“That is what's important to me, see. That is what Mama worries about: whether her little Mikasa truly smiles on the inside or not. I know that moving has been hard on you; to go so drastically from one world to another, it must be very hard for someone your age. But you like to keep secrets from me, my child, and I don't very much like that at all. Sometimes I fear that what the children in school do to you is worse than what you actually say.”

“Please don't worry,” the girl whispered, closing her eyes. “I'm okay.”

“Do they make fun of you? Do they make you feel bad about who you are? About how you look?” Mikasa didn't answer her question, instead opened her eyes only to gaze at some blank point in space. “So it really _ is _ bad, honey?” her mother murmured, slanted eyes going soft. “I need you to tell me if it is. I will call the school immediately.”

“No, it's not that bad. There's people who are nice to me too. People who defend me.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Mama was quiet for a moment, fiddling with the wedding band on her ring finger—and old nervous habit of hers. “And is that…” she started tentatively, “that… prince you mentioned?”

Mikasa brought her index finger to her lips, pressing the side to her mouth and breathing, “Shh.”

“Shhh. Right, right,” her mother nodded, smiling a little. “I won't tell your father.”

“Thank you.”

They snickered quietly, faces scrunching up in identical grins, and Mikasa deemed the conversation over, closing her eyes slowly to submerge herself into a deep, enticing sleep. She waited for Mama to kiss her forehead and bid her goodnight, maybe even sing her a song or two, but what she got instead was her long, thin fingers lacing through her own, and yet another grown up, motherly question.

“How is this uh,” she hesitated, fixing a fallen strap of her nightgown back over her shoulder. Mikasa's eyes fell to her mother's chest, watching as the pale skin swayed subtly with her breathing. “This… prince of yours. How is he with you?”

The sleepy girl smiled softly, thinking fondly of the boy. “He's very kind, Mama. He's kind to me even without knowing me.”

“Is he handsome?”

“He is.”

“Does he have a pretty name?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What is it?”

“I can't tell you.”

Her mother gasped, wounded. “Why not?”

“It's a secret.”

“Hmm,” her bony shoulders slumped, mildly disappointed. “Can I at least know what he looks like?”

“He looks like…” Mikasa started, rather unsure of where to go. How could she describe someone like Eren to Mama—to anyone? He was loud, and impulsive and brave, but he was also shy in the sense that he wouldn't personally approach her. He had the brightest eyes she'd ever seen on a human being, and the brightest smile, and the messiest, brownest hair. He was made of extremes; God had crafted him to be extraordinary. He had a small dimple, a secret, that flashed whenever he grinned or laughed too hard. And a voice like a king—confident, commanding; it made itself heard. “He looks like…” she began again, tapping a finger on her chin. “A nice cup of hot chocolate. With marshmallows and whipped cream.”

“What?” her mother laughed. “Really?”

“Yes!” the girl chirped, laughing too. “The feeling I get when I drink hot chocolate is the feeling I feel in my tummy when I see him.”

“Do you fancy him, Mikasa?” Mama asked, quirking a brow.

“No.” At least she didn't  _ think  _ she did. “I don't think so.”

“Then why do you call him a prince if you don't fancy him?”

“I'm not lying, Mama,” was her whisper, her dark eyes twinkling in the light. “He saved me. He made me feel special when everyone was cruel. He made me feel like I belong. That's what princes do in all those stories you read to me. They help the princess remember her worth. They make her feel beautiful and important. Right?”

“Yes…”

“That's why he is a prince to me. He reminds me of one. He's so nice, Mama. He makes me feel like I'm normal.”

“But, Mikasa,” Mama breathed, her features falling sadly. “You _ are _ normal.”

A solemn darkness filled the places in her eyes that had twinkled only seconds before. Mikasa bowed her gaze, lamenting, “No, I'm not, Mama. There's nothing normal about me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I know it. I feel it deep inside. I'm not like everyone else.”

“Does this… sadden you?”

“Sometimes.”

Her mother's brows knitted together. She picked at some invisible lint on Mikasa's bed, thinking for a long moment before rising from her daughter's bed to get her favorite doll, Ningyo. When she returned, her body sinking part of the mattress where she sat, she smoothed the doll's frazzled hair and handed her over to Mikasa.

“Listen to me,” she whispered, lifting the comforter so that it covered Ningyo too. Her hands were like silk on Mikasa's skin, holding her face and squishing her cheeks softly. Only after kissing the tip of her nose, did her mother speak again. “There is nothing wrong with being different. There is something marvelous living inside of you, my love. You are gentle, and strong, and brilliant. You are sensitive to the world around you and perceive things solely as they are. I believe—I truly believe, that you are magnificent, Mikasa.”

The young girl's features slowly brightened one by one, spirits noticeably raised as she looked deep into her mother's eternal, ebony eyes and smiled, “Really?”

“Yes,” she smiled back, pinching her nose. “I know it in my scraggly old bones.”

Mikasa giggled, clasping Mama's thin wrist and pushing her hands away from her face gently. “You're not so old, Mama.”

Her mother, her beautiful, gorgeous mother, gave a long, tired sigh. “I'm not so young anymore either.”

“Nonsense,” the child muttered. Mama grinned.

“The kids in your school? Don't let them take away your strength. That is your identity, who you are. Honor yourself, Mikasa. Always. When the entire world tells you that you are nothing, that is when you _ have  _ to believe in yourself the most. Nobody else can do it for you.” She propped an arm behind her, twisting her body sideways so that she was reclined just over the bump of Mikasa's body beneath the comforter. Her her small, button nose wrinkled suddenly. “Not even a prince, you hear?”

“Okay.”

“You will honor yourself, yes? For your Mama?”

“I will.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear.”

They coiled their pinkies together and Mama pecked the side of her small hand, then leaned forward and kissed her eyelids, and her forehead, and whispered, “I love you, sweetie. I love you so, so much.”

“Can Ningyo get a kiss too?”

“Of course,” she gasped, slapping a hand on her thigh as if she were mad at herself for having forgotten. “ _ Oyasumi nasai _ ,” she whispered to the doll after she'd received her kiss as well. “Goodnight, baby,” she whispered to her daughter, kissing her forehead one last time.

“Goodnight,” Mikasa smiled, feeling safe. Mama booped their noses together.

“Don't suck your thumb.”

“I won't,” she promised, and with that, her mother stood to walk away. Mikasa's eyes lingered sleepily on the shape of her body, how slender and graceful she seemed when she walked.  _ Your mother is the most beautiful woman in the world, _ Papa always said to her. And she had to agree wholeheartedly. She definitely was.

“Mama?” she called after her mother flicked the lights off. She turned her head and looked at her, one hand curled around the doorknob, her body already halfway out the door.

“Yes, honey?”

“Do onions have legs?”

Mother stared at daughter for a silent moment, frowning at the question. “No, they don't.”

Mikasa hummed and shut her eyes, so Mama closed the door slowly—still frowning—and watched the light that crept in from the hallway thinning gradually on her bed.

As the yellow glow ebbed to a thin slit, she could've sworn she heard the child whisper, “See, Ningyo? I told ya.”

**—o—**

**_Fite them! Beat them up! Punch them til their bloody and crying on their knees!_ **

_ What are you talking about? _

**_How can you hope to win if you don't fite them? Don't let them treat you so bad!_ **

_ You mean Sarah and the bullies? _

**_YEA!_ **

_ There's no point. _

**_Yes their is._ **

_ What? _

**_You defend yourself._ **

_ But they don't matter. Mama says they don't matter. _

**_Only the victors are allowed to live! How can you hope to win if you don't fite!_ **

_ Eren calm yourself. _

**_Sit with me at lunch tomarrow._ **

_ I can't. _

**_Why not? I want you to._ **

_ They'll all be there. Sarah sits with you at lunch. _

**_So? Please come I will defend you._ **

_ That won't be neseserry. _

**_Mikasa Ackerman please sit with me at lunch._ **

_ No. _

**_Pretty please?_ **

_ No. _

**_With a cherry on top?_ **

_ A cherry? _

**_Yes._ **

_ On top of what? _

**_Forget it._ **

_ Okay. _

**_Sit with me._ **

_ No. _

**_Don't you get tired of the libary?_ **

_ I like it. It has books. _

**_The cafeteria has food and peapol and that's better than books._ **

_ Never. _

(He sent her a drawing of children sitting at a large, round table. Two of them had arrows pointed at them. One said, **_me_** and the other, **_you_**.)

_ Stop it. _

**_Please?_ **

_ NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. _

**_I'll bring you extra chocolate._ **

_ What? _

**_You know what._ **

_ What kind of chocolate? _

**_Dark chocolate._ **

_ Fine. _

**_Yay!_ **

_ I'll bring your mother's flower crown too then. _

**_Sweet!_ **

_ Okay. _

**_Yay!_ **

_ Stop sending me notes. Mrs. Ral is going to notice and I don't want to get in trouble. _

**_Bye._ **

_ Bye. _

**_Tomarrow. Lunch. Remmember._ **

_ STOP SENDING NOTES!!! _

**_Okay fsh. Bye._ **

**—o—**

Mikasa was very excited.

She picked out the best flowers in Mama's garden for her flower crown. It had taken her nearly two hours to select the best ones—and only the best would do. The flower crown needed to be perfect.

It was already nighttime by the time she came back home, dropping her basket on the small desk in her room before commencing her work. She labored for a long time to perfect the flower crown, weaving daisies, carnations, small heathers and asters carefully into the halo she told Mama to make for a base. When all the flowers were secured, she tied a bow around the back for decoration, sighing in exhaustion and admiring her creation.

She didn't get much sleep that night, both because she was far too excited to fall asleep and also because she'd gone to bed so late, she had to wake up for school a mere five hours later. She'd never gone a day in her life with such little rest, but when Mama took her to school that morning, Mikasa was as energetic as ever, happily awaiting the day ahead.

Lunch time couldn't have come sooner. Mikasa hid the flower crown in a safe spot in the library, the librarian having had promised that she would keep an eye on the precious piece. When Mikasa had returned some hours later to retrieve it, the old lady asked her who it was for.

“It's for you-know-who's mother,” the girl whispered, unable to contain her smile. “It's my way of thanking her for all the meals she's made for me.” The librarian gasped loudly and cheered, so utterly overjoyed that Mikasa felt for a moment that the woman was exaggerating. But old people did that sometimes. Exaggerate, that is. “Go, child!” she encouraged, “Tell me what his reaction is when he gets it, I want to know!”

“Yes!” and she was off.

The school cafeteria was teeming with bodies and clattering with noise. Chatter filled the air, laughter rumbled the walls. The floor shook beneath the mighty stomp of running children. It was a damn circus. By God, a dreadfully intimidating place.

Mikasa swallowed—

_ Gulp. _

_ Ba-dump, ba-dump. _

—and commenced to walk.

Her heart was beating so fast she felt that she could vomit. Her eyes surveyed the cafeteria, looking for a messy brown head among the crowd of blondes and brunettes. Not many kids had hair like Mikasa's, she realized, as she looked around. Hers was the darkest, the straightest, the only one up in a pristine, flawless bun. It was an entire minute before she found what she quickly recognized to be Eren's head, tilted back to catch the bits of food his friends were throwing at him.

Eren. He sat on a table on the farthest wall to the left. She could tell by the way his shoulders shook as he swayed to the sides that he was laughing. There was so much noise, she couldn't hear his laughter. But she could make it out, imagine it, decipher the patterns it made as it was released into the world.

Smoothing down the skirt of her school uniform and taking a deep breath, Mikasa began to make her way towards him.

His back was to her. He hadn't seen her yet. With every step, she gradually drew closer. Closer. Closer. Closer, until she was halfway there. Her heart was in her throat. She swallowed dryly to force it back down to her chest. “Calm yourself, heart,” she whispered to it. “It's okay. We're almost there. Before you know it, it'll be over.” A grape was tossed to Eren's face. He went to catch it with his mouth, but it bumped his nose and bounced off to the ground instead. This time, she could hear his laughter perfectly. It rattled  her soul.

Mikasa was a mere four tables away when one of his friends stilled suddenly and nudged his shoulder. They whispered something in his ear. Eren turned around in his seat. He looked at her.

Smiles were exchanged.

A dimple flashed incredulously.

Mikasa's heart quickened even more, threatening to burst at any second.

She was almost there. She was so close. She could already see the shimmer in his eyes, the dimple created by his smile, the one crooked tooth in his grin. She could already hear his voice, saying hi to her, calling out her name, asking—

“Where do you think you're going?”

Sarah. Suddenly, she materialized out of nowhere and cut into her line of walking. She stood tall like a skyscraper, shrinking Mikasa to a halt in the middle of her steps.

“Uh…”the small girl stammered, wetting her lips. “I would like to get through, please.”

Sarah guffawed. Her cruel, malicious laugh gashed her like a dagger. “And what's that?” she pointed at the flower crown in Mikasa's hands. “Think you're going to a party, little gink?”

“No,” Mikasa gritted through her teeth, but soon realized that her hands were shaking. Eren. She needed to get to Eren. There was no time to waste. Couldn't Sarah wait until she had finished with him to bully her? “Please let me through,” she asked her nicely. The blonde girl responded with a scowl.

“Make me.”

Dark eyes flew to Eren, who was slowly rising to his feet, the smile wiped clean off his features. Everyone in his table was rising to their feet as well, she noticed. Actually, everyone around her was too. The cafeteria screeched with the scratch of chairs scraping the floor, the soft murmur of children training their eyes on her.

“He wants nothing to do with you,” Sarah seethed venomously. Mikasa had to blink up at her a couple of times before she realized she was speaking of Eren. “You're nothing. You're just a filthy gook. Run along, little Chinkerbell, before I hurt you,” she jabbed a finger on her chest, pushing her back a little. Mikasa swallowed again, praying loudly in her being. Heat rose to her cheeks, tears stung in her eyes.  _ Kami, please, make her go away. Make her leave me in peace. I just want to get through her. I only want to— _

Suddenly, quick fingers snatched the flower crown from her little hands. Just like that, in a mere flash, Mikasa was barren of her sacred gift, of her long hours of hard work. She didn't even have enough time to breathe before Sarah was holding it up to show everyone.

“Look at this, everybody!” she announced to the audience of keen ears. “Chicken Curry made a flower crown!”

A chorus of laughter struck Mikasa across the face. The children giggled and tittered, forming a cruel, swooshing sea of mockery. Only Eren's face twisted with fury instead of amusement.

“Give it back, Sarah,” he growled at the blonde, adapting a tone Mikasa had never heard him use before. There was no hint of playfulness in his words. He was giving her an order. “Stop being so mean. She's done nothing to you.”

“She can speak for herself, Jaeger!” a boy screamed a few tables away. Eren's cheeks were turning red with anger.

“It's not fair!” he hissed. “Leave her alone!”

“Ooooooooooh,” someone crooned, “look! Eren has a crush on her.”

“Shut up.”

“Jaeger has a crush on the gook!”

“Be quiet!”

“Eren, how sweet! Is she your girlfriend?”

“I didn't know you liked chicken curry  _ that _ much!”

“Does that make him a gook now, too?”

“Eren's not a gook, idiot. Only she is.”

“Oh.”

“Jaeger's in love with the chink!”

“ _ Eren and Chinkerbell sitting in a tree, _ ” they sang. “ _ K-I-S-S-I-N-G! _ ”

Mikasa's breathing suffered under the weight of everything that was happening around her. She felt the tears, the suffocation, the hyperventilation that strangled her lungs. Her eyes shot once more to Eren.  _ Fight back _ , he mouthed to her, ignoring the kids around him.  _ Defend yourself. Fight her! _

“You know what?” Sarah's cheeks were red with anger, too. A deep hatred boiled deep inside of her. She glowered at Mikasa so fiercely, her blue eyes seem to come aflame. “I hate you,” she spat, “and I hate this stupid crown.”

Instantly, a flurry of motion took place before her very eyes. Sarah's hands worked furiously at ripping the crown to pieces. Flower petals rained down to the ground like colorful snow. Mikasa's gasp was loud. “No!” she screamed, but the thing was hurled violently to the ground and Sarah's shoe came stomping down on it over and over again until the flowers—what were left of them—were all crushed.

The poor girl sobbed helplessly as she watched her creation be destroyed. The entire cafeteria whirred with activity and excitement. Some children cheered, some objected, some averted their eyes in indifference, some said nothing at all, only pitied the girl as she cried freely before all of them.

_ They don't matter, _ a little voice said in her head.  _ They don't matter. Don't let them see you cry. Don't let them take your strength, your dignity. Honor yourself. Be strong. Do it for Mama. _

But it was too late.

“No, no, no,” Mikasa wept, cradling her face in her hands. Sobs wracked her small body, filling her heart with darkness and pain. Why was the world so cruel? Why did it have to be so mean to her? What had she done to deserve this? “Please, stop this, Sarah.”

“Ha!” the taller girl grinned when she felt satisfied. “Look, I made it prettier for you.” Mikasa's shoulders shook as she peered down at the ruined flower crown, scattered petals broken and dirty from being stepped on speckling the floor. “Let this be a lesson, Rice Ball,” Sarah smirked, leaning close to hiss at her. “Stay away from him.”

Heartbroken and winded, Mikasa fell to her knees, scrambling to retrieve the ribbon Mama had given her for her flower crown. The bow, although dirtied, remained intact. She hiccuped for a moment, tears dripping off her chin, her fingers brushing the mottled bow she had worked so hard to perfect. A few tables away, Eren stood, frozen, gaping at the scene before him. Helpless.

Mikasa's body remained on the floor, defeated. Her sobs tore deep, smiling crevices in Eren's heart. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He wanted so desperately to go out there and save her, but his arm was clutched tightly in his friend's hand, stopping him from stepping forward.

Her beautiful dark eyes never rose to meet his again—and how he wished that they would. How he yearned to see them, tears and all, to tell them it's alright, that he's not angry, that the ruined flower crown is not her fault. In his heart, he told her he was sorry. He wished telepathy was one of his skills, so that he could give her insight to his thoughts and remind her that she's worth much more than what she's going through, that she is so much better than everyone else, so much stronger.

But he didn't need to remind her.

Suddenly, Sarah turned to walk away, and in the dwindling noise of cheers and groans and laughter, a mild, calmer voice rippled through the air.

“Hey, Sarah.”

Everything went still.

“Yeah?” The blonde girl smiled, turning to face Mikasa, whom was slowly rising to her feet, the ravaged flower crown trembling in her fingers.

“You forgot something,” she said, sniffling. Her nose and cheeks were pink from crying. Eren could see the color all the way from where he stood. “You left the ribbon.”

“Excuse me?” Sarah squinted her eyes at her. “What did you just say?”

“The bow,” Mikasa's voice was brittle. She looked so small. Eren wanted to close his eyes, to look away from the impending ridicule—but he couldn't desert her like that. He stared. “You left it intact.”

Everyone stared in confusion as the small girl handed the remains of the flower crown to the bully. Sarah took it, scoffing loudly, looking around her and grinning, “Can you believe this girl?” But when her head turned to face her again, a fist flew straight into her face and crashed against her nose.

A sharp, cracking sound shook the air, and a flare of blonde hair streaked everyone's vision as the taller girl flew back a few feet and landed on her ass. Gasps billowed around them, and the place went eerily silent and rigid with shock. Not a single breath was drawn when Sarah sat upright on the ground, holding a hand to her nose, wide eyes round and full of panic.

The next second, blood was dripping from her hand, tears were pouring from her eyes in rivulets. She wailed, crying for her mother like an infant. A few of the students attempted to go and help her, but Mikasa stood so tall among the crowd that nobody dared to move a single hair, suddenly fearful of the girl they'd thought could be squashed so easily before.

“I am  **NOT** **_CHICKEN CURRY!!!!!!_ ** ” Mikasa roared, balling her fists by her sides. All eyes were startled. Some children even jumped. “I am not weak! I am not a gook! I'm strong! I'm stronger than all of you!”

Nobody argued.

“And you!” she pointed down at Sarah, who inched away from her in fear. “Don't you  _ ever  _ touch me again.  _ Ever _ . You will respect me, or you will not look at me or even  _ breathe _ near me, you understand?”

The blonde nodded vigorously, moaning, “Yes.”

“That flower crown you ruined wasn't mine,” Mikasa shouted, her soft, meek voice growing to a mighty boom. “Do you realize what you've done? You ruined something that belonged to Eren's mother! You are mean and nasty and full of dark, evil things. I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for all the cruel things you’ve done to me and now to Eren. Apologize to us!”

“I'm sorry.”

“What was that?”

“I'm sorry!”

“Say it louder. I don't think he heard you all the way back there.”

“I'm sorry, Mikasa! I'm sorry, Eren! I'll never do it again!”

Mikasa sniffled, drying her tears. “Oh, you won't. Don't worry,” and when she retrieved the flower crown from the ground, she undid the bow laced around it for a stunned, quiet second. It was undone in a breath, removed from the crown and held tightly in Mikasa's pale, bruised hand. Sarah's snivels punctured the room as the smaller girl made her way towards her, crimson drops of blood dappling her navy-colored skirt and the floor. In a calm, controlled gesture, Chinkerbell placed the flower crown on her blonde, stupid head, whispering, “Now, it's yours.”

Sarah was the one sobbing now, the one on her knees, and the entire place watched as Mikasa spun on her feet and walked away, leaving an astounded sea of children gaping behind her. Some went to help Sarah, who screamed in pain and cried out once more for her mom. A second too late, teachers came running into the cafeteria. Someone must've gone and alarmed them, but it was all for naught, for all they found was a weeping child, a broken nose, and the remainders of a flower crown dirtying her flaxen hair.

Eren would've cheered—laughed, even—had he not been so utterly astounded. His eyes followed Mikasa's body until she exited the cafeteria and he couldn't see her anymore. “Wow,” he breathed. He couldn't help but feel, but hope, that he had played a small role in what just happened.

He saw the teachers scramble worriedly around Sarah, who wailed, “It was Mikasa! Mikasa! She punched my nose!” Her cries echoed in the room, in the small bodies around her. The children watched as she was escorted out the cafeteria, still wearing that ruined flower crown and cradling her nose with blood pouring from her hands. Dots of red trailed the floor behind her. Some fallen petals did too. Mikasa's roar lingered in the air.  _ I'm stronger than all of you,  _ it reminded.

Nobody objected.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've figured out the way this entire fic is set out. It has three parts: Part I, II, and III. Part I is chapters 1-5, and Part II starts at chapter 6 with the first past chapter and will end with the final past chapter that's revealed. So, think of Part I as the prologue, Part II as the story's body, and Part III as the end.
> 
> Now that we're in Part II, chapters will cycle back and forth between past and present, because past chapters are where we get to see how these two fell in love and what happened to split them up—and also, Armin is present mainly in these past chapters, and because he's an important character in the story, I think it's important we give him as much “screen time” as possible. Part II will be the longest part, so we've still got lots ahead.
> 
> OH AND BEFORE I FORGET!!!!! My favorite artist drew fanart of last chapter! You can find it on my blog [here](http://natiwati.tumblr.com/post/129172670199/lolakasa-im-sorry-this-is-a-mess-but-i-felt). She drew Mikasa so beautiful. I cried.


	9. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the fastest I have ever updated this fanfiction. Since last chapter was titled after a song, I decided to do the same with this one. It’s titled after Ryuichi Sakamoto's gorgeous [score](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgSeZpcMOBE), and I feel that it fits the ambient of this chapter perfectly.

It's cold outside, as Jean had told her that it was—as is blatantly obvious by the way her breath billows out of her as steam, and her shoulders slightly shiver, and her stilettos crush tiny crystals of ice under their soles. And yet, how warm she feels, internally. It's sort of a silent heat, ephemeral and as promising as the idea of melting into the silence of the city that surrounds her. How odd it is, how funny, that tonight of all nights the buildings and the skyscrapers whistle quietly with the wind, instead of exploding with sound and life and music. It's Christmas, and the world seems to mourn rather than rejoice. 

But it’s just her. Perhaps parties are alive everywhere, only hidden away inside walls and towers so that Mikasa is as disconnected from their current of activity as she was to the people from the gathering she's just left. Jean was right; his coat is warmer, much, much warmer than hers. And she's gotten a lot better at walking in heels, she realizes. Her steps are brisk and purposeful, although aimless. But she doesn't wobble. That's a first.

She doesn't really know where she's going, but she's going, alright. The key, she tells herself, is to keep on walking. Never stop. Something within her reverberates  _ walk, walk, walk, walk Mikasa just keep walking.  _ And she obeys. The buildings scrape the starless sky and her bare legs prickle in the cold but she's not cold, no, not really, she has a purpose and she doesn't at the same time but that's okay she just keeps walking because walking is her motive now. She just has to get away. ( _ Get away from what, Mikasa? What exactly is it that you're running from this time? _ )

Ice crackles beneath her feet, popping and wreathing her exposed little toes like flames curling around firewood. That'd be nice, she thinks. Heat. But there's no way she's going back to that party, no way. She'd rather freeze stiff before going back to mingling with that phony champagne flute in her hand and that phony smile on her lips and the phony expression of interest on her face. 

She thinks of the little lights she'd seen earlier, how they'd glowed: green, blue, and gold. Her favorite compilation of colors. Due to the air's icy nip, Mikasa's pallid cheeks sprout out soft, rosy tints that resemble that of a rose. Her nose is runny, and she accidentally smears some of her makeup on Jean's coat when she goes to wipe her snot off on the sleeve. A smudged streak of her lipstick stains the expensive, cosmopolitan outerwear, and she sighs internally at the idea of having to clean it off later herself. She feels a sudden urge to rasp her face clean on the jacket, to rid herself of the makeup that masks her imperfections, hides her thin, dainty scar; rids her of herself, her identity, her flaws. With all this makeup on, she feels she no longer resembles her mother. The air is so cold. It makes her face itch even more.

Mikasa walks past a park, recognizing it instantly. Park Rose, Eren had called it. It's the name it has acquired from “all the damn rose bushes” it homes. The entire park is illuminated with Christmas lights, billions of tiny bulbs curling up and around the trunks, the branches, of every lanky, leafless tree. The last thing her eyes catch is a solitary water fountain, and you won't believe the inexplicable force that tugs at her bones for her to run over and splash her face with water to wash off all the artificial paint. To bare herself to the universe, say here I am, this is me, with my scars and my uneven skin tone and my inability to walk properly in heels.

Mikasa picks up her pace.

She walks right past the movie theater where she stumbled into Eren all those days ago. She can almost see their figures, twirling like dancers in the frigid air before tumbling towards a wall, where Eren curled a strong, safe arm around her and kept her from falling to the ground. And she'd known it right then, before even looking up at him, before meeting his blue-and-green-and-golden eyes, that it was him because that  _ smell _ , his smell, it was ancient and delicate and homey and there's only one person in the world that can smell that way. It used to be the smell that lingered on her scarf, the crimson scarf she always wears as a staple because she has as much fashion sense as a toe (and also because, well, reasons).

Mikasa walks even faster.

_ Clack, clack, clack,  _ her stilettos thump on the cement, crystals of ice and glass and who knows what else crunching under her steps. Where the hell is she even going? She's on a mission, though, by God. Brisk and fast and serious, she trots onward like a steed. Godspeed, she tells herself. Godspeed.

It's only when her legs start to burn that she thinks to stop and gauge exactly where she finds herself.

She's seen these streets. She's seen these apartments. She's seen that lamppost, and that mailbox, and that flower pot and that car. She's seen—

_ Eren? _

Mikasa stops cold on her feet.

Her insides jolt forth as if her spirit is intent on still carrying her forward. But she's frozen. Frozen in place because the figure she sees standing a few feet away looks a lot like something green and blue and gold and soft and delicate and nice and homey. With her breath high up in her lungs, she balls her fists and flickers her gaze to her surroundings. Pounding in her chest, her heart starts screaming,  _ Eren! That's Eren! Look at where you've ended up! You're right by his apartment! It's him! It's him! Go to him, silly! _

_ No, _ her brain spits back.  _ Shut up. It's not him. It can't be. That dude isn't wearing a coat, and Eren's smarter than that. And that dude has a cigarette in his mouth. Eren doesn't smoke, he's smarter than that. And that guy doesn't have stubble and Eren has stubble. So why don't you just keep walking? That's right, just like that. Oh, God he's looking. He's staring. Walk faster, woman! Keep walking and try to find your way back to—! _

“Mikasa?”

“Oh!” she gasps, hands flailing. They land on her heart, which thuds against the walls of her chest and snickers,  _ See? I told you.  _

And of course, it's really him. With no coat on. And an unlit cigarette between his lips, his eyes as wide and round as giant marbles. “Mik—” he gapes at her for a second before removing the small tube from his lips and running a hand down his mouth. He seems almost embarrassed, like she's caught him doing something he prefers to keep hidden from the world. Chaste smoke rises from his mouth, carried in his breath, and Mikasa wallows in the familiarity of his voice when he asks her, “What… What are you doing here?”

“Uh…” Her eyes dart around, fretful. She catches herself wringing her hands together, so she balls them into fists. A chill breeze slips in between her teeth and “How did you know it was me?”

Mikasa cringes from the awkward waver in her voice, but Eren doesn't even flinch. No. He smirks. In fact, he smiles. In fact, there's no stubble, no crazy hair—in fact, he looks… good? He's shaved. And his hair's back in a ponytail. And a chocolate strand falls over his face. And it's the whole seeing him for the first time shebang all over again. “Who else would be walking around in the middle of winter wearing heels and a dress?” he remarks. 

“I…”  _ Breathe, okay. Breathe. Just act casual. Be cool. Be cool. _ “What are you doing out with no coat on?”  _ Nice, Mikasa. Smooth. _

“Um…” Okay, but she can't deny the way his eyes struggle to hold still. They dribble down the length of her body, eyeing coat, hands, kneecap, toes, then darting right back up to her face. “I was taking out the trash,” he explains simply, clearing his throat. Mikasa nods her head softly.

“Oh.”

The cigarette's trapped idly between his fingers. Useless. Without a second's thought, he flings it to the side, letting it roll on the sidewalk. “So what are you doing here?” he tries not to choke, feeling an overwhelming mix of panic and excitement. Funny how the two can mix, and mesh, and burst, spur him on. Her lashes flicker with her flitting gaze, jumping here and there and not really focusing on him.

“Um…” she sighs and thinks for a moment, frowning. “I'm just walking around?”

“By yourself?”

“Mhm. I like being alone.”

“Yes, I know,” he breathes, gaze dripping to her shins, her neck, her hair, her lips. “Are you lost?”

“Not really,” she sputters, adjusting the strap of her purse on her shoulder. Eren's eyebrows slide up to the top of his head in skepticism. Mikasa sighs. “Okay, yes.” 

“Where are you coming from?” he queries, slipping his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. Mikasa's gaze flits all over again. She looks jumpy, nervous. She swallows hard. Eren's eyes catch the faint bob of her throat. They linger there, on her neck.

“Sina Plaza,” comes her lisp, breathless voice, pulling his gaze back up to her eyes. He dwells on the curve of her lashes, the shadows that fan outward and cast streaks of darkness with every blink. “Again.”

“Party?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” He nods up at Hitch's apartment. “Same here.”

Mikasa peers up at the building beside them, and a long silence unfurls between them. For a moment, her gaze flickers over the architecture, and Eren tries to imagine what she's thinking. Can she hear the loud banter of his friends?  _ He _ sure can. But in a way, noises fade away when she's around him, so that all he can hear is her breathing, her presence, her constant, primal silence that's as omnipresent as the air. Ymir's shouting again, but Ymir's always shouting when she's hammered. He wonders if she actually chugged that vodka bottle like she said she would. He hopes not, but wouldn't be surprised to find out if she did it. She's kind of… extreme like that.  _ All  _ of his friends are kind of extreme like that. It helps him appreciate Mikasa's tranquil aura a little more. She's like this breath of fresh air in his world of suffocation, the gasp of life that breaches the water's surface after drowning for so long. “People,” he hears her whisper suddenly, her eyes falling back to him. “Too many, I just… I needed a break.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” he smiles, and she smiles too. Silence drapes around them like a blanket, sheltering them from the rest of the world. It's just her, and him; and there's music playing quietly, muffled from way up in Hitch's flat but none of them can really hear it anymore. Eren rolls his tongue in his cheek, eyeing the way Mikasa swallows again and tucks her hands into her coat pockets. The thing's big on her, he notices. And by the way the shoulders are tailored, he can tell that it belongs to a man.  _ Jean _ , he remembers Mikasa calling her fiancé. She's wearing his coat.

He wonders if it truly keeps her warm.

“Um…” Eren feigns a cough. It takes a lot of courage, but he musters up just enough to ask her, “Do you want me to walk you back?”

This makes her figure perk up instantly.

For a second, the startled circles of her eyes carol with excitement. But just as quickly, her visage darkens and her gaze sinks low. “No, no, Eren, I—”

“It wouldn't be a problem.”

“No, I can just get a taxi or something, it's okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I've—” Her fingers rummage through the contents of her purse. It's a mere three seconds before her features fall disappointingly and she sighs, “Or not.”

“What's wrong?”

“I left my wallet.”

“Oh-ho, shit,” he chuckles, and smiles at how she squeezes her eyes shut, thumping a fist softly on her forehead.

“God. I'm such an idiot.” 

“Mikasa.” She opens her eyes at the sound of her name. “Let me walk you back.”

“Eren, no. It's Christmas. Go back to your party. Have fun. I…” her mouth twists with something sour, brows furrowing heavily enough for the crease in between them to pop out. “I shouldn't even be here.”

“Here's the thing,” Eren shrugs, biting the inside of his cheek, and Mikasa could spend hours deciding what it is that makes him look so different tonight, map out exactly what's changed since the time she last saw him.

His hair's pulled back and his stubble's gone and suddenly now she has to ease the springs she's wound up so tightly, loosen the taut grip of her own perception of reality. She questions (for the umpteenth time, really) if it's truly him, if it's not just the dying embers of her mind smoldering with the phantom smoke of her memories. But his image is warm and fuzzy and real before her, and as he takes a step, two, three forward, his eyes glow: blue, green, and gold—she counts the colors, whispers them intimately in her heart.

His voice is deep, the voice she remembers, the trickle of soothing warmth that lathers her insides with something so direly relieving she feels the need to bask in it. This time, she allows herself to wallow, and even closes her eyes to the sound of him, to the only music she can hear—the only music she  _ wants _ to hear, quite frankly.

“I could just go back in there and act like I didn't see you tonight and get drunk off my ass and genuinely forget I ever even saw you,” he husks, shrugging again. “Except that I can't do that now, because I saw you, and you're all on your own in this big-ass city wearing a fucking dress and heels that look like they'll get caught in the first grater you step on. So, really, this is just me being selfish so that, you know, my conscience doesn't kill me tonight when I go to bed and wonder if you got jumped on your way back or something.”

Despite herself, Mikasa laughs. “Oh.”

“Yeah, so… please. Let me walk you. Unless you're planning on walking around some more?”

“No, I'm… I'm starting to feel the cold now.”

“Yeah, me too,” he shivers, but doesn't move. The winter breathes around them, and for an inhale, something thaws within the girl, cracking ice melting to reveal a series of questions:

_ Why is it that every time you're feeling low, you manage to run into Eren? _

Her eyes roll up to him. He's not looking at her. She blinks at the silence, but it's not awkward or uncomfortable. It's somber. Painted in the air.

_ And why is it that he's always ready to receive you? _

Eren always knows what to do, she's got to give him that. He's always quick to read her, figure out what it is she needs. And how? And why? And for how long will he continue to do it so patiently, so kindly? Stopping his life for her?

_ And why is it that when you're lost, he's the one you end up going to? _

He shivers again, and this time it's more of a mild twitch, reminiscent of the jolts that had shattered his body last time she saw him after he'd drank too much coffee. She snorts quietly, allowing that pesky strand of hair that keeps falling over her face to slip out and dangle over her eyes. They both wear their hairs up in ponytails and sport unruly locks of hair and hide their hands inside their pockets and they both are caught off guard when Mikasa says, “Get your coat, Eren.”

He lights up. His eyes go happy and wide and he gasps, “So I'm walking you?”

“Sure.”

“Sweet!” Dimple. Blue, green, gold. Shimmer. A swift turn on his heels and, “Alright, come on.” Whoa, wait, what? Come on where?

Eren's quick to trot up to the main door of his apartment building, but Mikasa's feet take just four reluctant steps before she balks at the bottom of the stairs. He seems to sense her hesitation, turning to face her with his hand curled around the doorknob, cold air slipping into the building from the open door. For a beat, they just look at one another: Eren's eyes shining down at her, Mikasa's staring warily back up at him.

“Come on in,” he prompts quietly, sweeping a hand towards the door to encourage her. “You can get warm inside.”

“Eren, no,” she whispers, balling a hand against her chest. There's fear in her eyes, and he doesn't understand it. “That's a terrible idea.”

He frowns. “Why?”

“Because you're in a party and they're your friends and I don't want to intrude—I'm already being a nuisance enough as it is.”

“No, you're not” he scoffs, frowning deeper. “Come on, there's heat inside.”

“Eren—”

“Yes?”

“I shouldn't.”

His lips press together in a thin line. He sighs, shoulders dropping, and there's a worn, tired sound to his groan when he shuts the door and comes down the steps to stand in front of her. “You know, I've realized two things in the short amount of time since we ran into each other,” he says, his figure occupying the pupils of her eyes as she peers up at him in mild shock. “Do you wanna know what they are?”

Mikasa's quiet for a moment, blinking. He's huge from where he stands now, way too tall and she's way too tiny and he's only an entire step taller than her (plus what he already is). His hands are back inside his pockets and he shivers again but doesn't make for the door, instead, holds out a finger and says, “Number one: you suck at dressing appropriately for the weather,” then holds out another. “And two: I don't know why or what it is, but every time I look at you you look like you're running for your life.”

Mikasa's eyes wince at his words. She's sturdy, standing tall despite their height difference, tightening her jaw and squinting up at him. “Is that all?”

“No. Another thing is, you're always cold. And scared. And you keep showing up at the most random times, Mikasa. Like you've fallen down from the sky and landed on my face.”

A breath: “I'm sorry.”

Eren grunts, throwing his head back. “And you apologize about  _ everything. _ God, it makes me so mad. Like, I wanna punch something in the face.”

“You always wanna punch something in the face.”

“That's not the point.”

“Then what  _ is _ the point?”

They blink at each other for a moment, and Mikasa's face is so unreadable it causes something within him to crack. She's not exactly being defensive, but she's pretty clear on where she draws the line, and he knows—they both know—that he's teetering pretty damn close to it.

Even more so, Eren swallows and allows himself to sigh dramatically, to look pointlessly to the side because his gaze will inevitably come back to her. And when he looks at her again, she's such a stranger with her lipstick and her makeup and her dress and that coat and her heels but then she's also the only thing in his life he can truly recognize, recalling those eyes and that hair and those lips and that scar and that serious fucking look she's fixing him with. And he wants so bad to reach out, to act upon the surge of glory billowing inside him and pull her up a step and kiss her, grab her face and let her taste the words he cannot bring himself to say. And it's Christmas today and six years ago this day, she left him. Six years ago this day, she held him and loved him and fucked him and promised she would always be with him and now look at where they are and look at how she looks at him and how he looks at her and maybe if circumstances were different they would be able to pick up where they left off, resume the sentences that were cut short so abruptly and make love like in those cheesy romantic movies they both loathe so much and she's wearing this weird-ass dress and another man's coat but in this ideal world Eren has fathomed she wears her own clothes and she runs into his arms and says nothing, lets her body say it all. And how nice it would be to have this sort of cruel reunion, to have her on the very date she broke his heart and let her mend him back together again, word for word, piece by piece, promise after promise. And he can see her shins and half her legs and envision the contours of her body, how the hollows and the shadows would feel like pressed against his skin and maybe this fiancé of hers really  _ does _ love her, maybe he yearns for her the way Eren does too, but something tells him that no,  _ no he doesn't _ , that the grip she's got on him isn't as painful or as tight and it's not fair because he's the only man she does this to and she's the only woman who does this to him and  _ fuck, _ how he aches to touch her and he has to fight the urge every second that she's near as if his blood were made of iron and her bones were made of magnets. And in this perfect, ideal world where they meet again, Mikasa's not about to get married, instead she's happy and she's free and not this thin and Eren would know because he'd take her to his room and watch the garments disappear and see her chest stutter, her eyelids flutter, the momentum build, build, and there'd be no gap between her thighs and no protruding rib cage, only her fullness and her curves and the chiseled silhouette of a dancer, not a girl, not this pale, trembling woman that sighs her worries into the air as they garner into thin, ephemeral smoke that vanishes as quickly as his self-control does. And he wants so bad to beg  _ please don't change, please don't change too much 'cause I can't bear it, I can't take it, I can't even look at you in the face because it kills me, you make me stupid, you turn me raw  _ but that is selfish and inappropriate even though Eren is really good at being both.

So he sighs, and looks pointlessly to the side, and looks helplessly right back at her and admits, “Actually, I think I lost it,” and the fucking leap his heart takes when her severity breaks and she smiles—you wouldn't believe how she smiles at him. It's unnatural, magical. Winded, he finds himself dizzy and out of breath and it takes him a moment to recollect himself, to wipe his mouth with the edge of his wrist and rip away from her, trot back up the steps and pretend not to feel her gaze sticking to his back, burning through his shirt and singeing him all the way through to the bone—pretend, pretend, pretend. Vulnerable and inappropriate and ever-so-selfish, he soothes himself by reminding:  _ I was there first. I taught her how to fight and live and love herself. She's the woman that she is because of me. _ And he knows—he fucking  _ knows _ —that everything he is, ever has been, and ever will be, he owes to her. To this stranger. To this drifter. To this speck of light among a plane of ash.

“Welp, you can stay out here if you want, but I might be a while,” Eren murmurs, scratching his right eyebrow with his thumb and praying that he doesn't sound as tired as he suddenly feels. It's times like these that he wishes more than anything that his heart wasn't so exuberant, that emotions didn't palpitate so brilliantly within him and bleed out so candidly the way they do. He should be careful, he should be stronger. But he is a man and he is broken and he is, despite everything, sensitive and small. He's not like Mikasa. He doesn't know how not to show, how not to feel everything all at once and let it choke him. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, he hopes to come back as something disconnected from everything, so far out of reach, like a star. And he hopes that his little light would flicker a bit more brilliantly, a tad bit greater than all the other flickers in the sky. And that eyes will gaze upon him and recount his petty human life, this life, and decide that it was more than this sad, feeble gush that oozes and leaks and is such a horrible, godawful mess he can't even take a hold of. He hopes, despite everything, despite Mikasa. He hopes, he hopes, he hopes.

But he can't even hear himself talking anymore.

“Everyone's shit-faced so they'll probably give me a hard time for leaving.” His hand's already halfway to curling around the doorknob again when he hears her:

“Who's there? At the party?”

Eren's quiet for a moment, absorbing what she's just said. There's a hint of possibility, a tinge of promise in her voice. Afraid to spook it away, his tone is gentle and inviting, the offering hand that lures the famished soul. “Just a couple of people. You can come meet 'em if you want. Unless you've got your own friends to go back to, then I'll try to be quick—”

“That sounds great.”

He turns to gape at her. “Really?!”

“Yes!” and he'd be ashamed of how excited he just sounded if it wasn't for the fact that her own voice is just as tight as his. “I'd love to meet them,” she coos, the words mingling in the wind around him and blowing that strand of hair that now sticks to his parted lips. “Your friends.”

He can feel the smile ripping his mouth apart, stretching his demeanor terribly thin. He clears his throat, making a show of being a lot less ecstatic than what he is and shrugging, “Alright. Well, let's go before my ass freezes shut.”

Mikasa wrinkles her little nose. It's pink, still. “That's disgusting.”

Eren smirks, “I'm starting to feel it.”

“Eren, gross,” she giggles, and he grins because God, how he loves her laugh. He feels his chest expanding, making room for the burgeoning elation of his heart.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he urges, shivering from the cold. Mikasa's heels knock on the steps and she makes her way up as quickly as she can manage without tripping. And when she stands beside him, when she's close enough for them to share breaths, and scents, and smiles and colors, Eren opens the door leading to his future with his past standing by his side, bowing slightly and stepping out of her way to grin, “Your highness.”

Mikasa smiles brightly at his invitation, tipping her head down in thanks. And if only he could record that very quirk of her lips and his own reflection in her eyes and how that stray lock of hair strokes her jawbone and engrave it all into his mind so that someday in the future he might recall the exact moment in which he deemed himself the luckiest man in the world tonight. It's a blessing that the stars arrange the way they do, that fate or destiny or whatever people like to blame life's happenings on has brought them together again. And he doesn't question. Only thanks. He offers his gratitude to the sky and moon and everything else that carries the godly whisper of creation, whatever it is that gathered all the colors of the world and painted this masterpiece: her smile when she talks to him, the spark in her eyes when a playful spark lights between them and—

“Why, thank you, peasant. You are most kind.”

“Okay, you know what?”

She shrieks when he threatens to slam the door shut in her face.

**—o—**

A torrent of drunken shouts floods them the second Eren opens the door.

“Ay, Eren's back!”

“Ay!”

“AYYYY!!!”

“AYYYYYYY!!!”

“My _ amigo _ !”

“Eren, you fucking shit lord I missed your ugly face!”

Mikasa follows meekly behind him, eyes trained on the clothed muscles of his back, the little hairs that fall out of his ponytail and curve against the nape of his neck. She could count them if she wanted to, add them to her list of things she's finding different in him tonight. But the sudden anxiety of facing so many people, so many drunken, happy people all at once slaps her thoughts away.

“Guys, chill,” Eren drones, and a mere second after he has spoken, another deluge of greetings comes galloping their way:

“Ay! The Jaeger-nator!!”

“ _ La cucaracha machata! _ ”

“That makes no sense, Thomas.”

“Wut.”

“My papaya fucker!”

“AYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!”

“WOOT WOOT!!!”

“God.” Eren huffs, but he's smiling. He steps aside to allow Mikasa to come forward, sensing her hesitation the moment their eyes meet. His gaze is reassuring; it pulls her forth. Back when she was crossing the threshold into his apartment, it had been a ghost-like murmur that'd pushed her on. Tonight, it's Eren who grants her the courage.

There's more drunken banter that they ignore because suddenly, Hitch materializes beside them with a Red Bull in her hands, seizing their attention. Her perfume is something strong and unrecognizable. Eren seems to smell it too, for his head turns in sync with Mikasa's to peer at the woman closing in from their right.

Her amber-green eyes are slow and sleepy, clinging to the floor before rolling up to them—and it's as if Mikasa doesn't even exist. She looks right through her and to the man standing by her side.

“Eren,” she chippers, a catty smile humoring her peachy lips. Standing this close to them, with her hair hanging down in wispy coils at the ends and her irises glinting all soft and hazel, Mikasa can see that she's a lot prettier than what she'd previously made her out to be. (But then again, a man's dress shirt and a whole lot of hickeys plus crazy after-sex hair doesn't exactly complement everyone, now does it?) The clothes she wears tonight seem to be made of liquid and drip around her feline curves: jeans so tight they've been painted on her legs, a plain black tank top clinging to her torso and rucking up at her hips to expose the skin below her naval and crease around her narrow waist. A simple necklace circumscribes her neck, and there's no hickeys there tonight—at least, none that Mikasa can see—but the faint bruise that peeks out at the top of her right breast is enough to raise some eyebrows (and did Eren do that?).

When she speaks again, her voice is as sharp as Mikasa remembers it to be, high-pitched and full of itself but at the same time  _ purring  _ rather than talking. Words vibrate on her tongue almost sweetly, but with a tinge of venom dappled here and there. “What the hell took you so— Oh.” Finally, she notices her.

The whole damn apartment does, in fact.

“Damn,” someone breathes. The entire place goes silent, save for the music that plays in the background and the sound effects coming from the TV. All heads are turned Mikasa's way, and she feels like crawling into her own skin to shield herself from their piercing stares. Nobody says anything for what feels like a horrendously long time—even Eren goes quiet, his attention pinned solely unto to her. It's only when Hitch quirks one of her neatly groomed eyebrows and somebody coughs that the silence shatters.

“ _ Muy caliente, _ ” a blonde male with strong sideburns croons. Mikasa frowns, turning to Eren.

“What did he just say?” she whispers. Teal-green eyes cringe.

“He's— Ignore him.”

“Well, well. Look who's here,” Hitch mewls suddenly, her fiery gaze scrutinizing her, and Mikasa can't help but feel like an animal trapped under her paw, dwindling until she's nothing but a feeble, writhing critter squirming above the open, fanged maw of a lion. Hitch is, by all means, a very intimidating creature. Her eyes, although sleepy and a little stoned, are damn right fierce. Confident. Self-assured. Her beauty and severity is what makes her the type of woman that is even scarier up close. Enthralling, maybe, but still pretty damn scary. “Did you find her standing outside your door again, Eren?”

He fixes her with a rather blatant glare, choosing to ignore her comment and introduce them.

“Mikasa, Hitch. Hitch, Mikasa.”

“Oh, I remember her,” the cat-like smile purrs, but not kindly. Her eyes flit over every physical aspect of Mikasa, sizing her up.

“Nice to meet you,” she says, extending a hand out in greeting. Hitch just stares at it for a moment, tracing the length of her fingers and the rock on her engagement ring before smirking up at Eren, telling him something through her eyes that he seems to catch by the way his jawbone throbs with annoyance.

“I bet,” is all she answers with, and she's about to open her mouth to say more when a tall, tanned brunette appears behind her and smacks her ass with a sharp  _ thwap _ . Hitch jumps, exclaiming in surprise, glowering at the woman as she throws an arm around her shoulders and smiles at Mikasa through a sip of her Heineken beer.

“Don't mind her,” the woman tells her, swaying forth a bit. Freckles dot her cheeks and nose through the pink flush of intoxication. She, too, is beautiful, but in a way that differs greatly from Hitch. “She's just sour because you're prettier than her and 'cause her name rhymes with  _ bitch _ —which you are, by the way.”

“Go choke on a dick.”

“No, thanks. Lesbian, remember?” She points a finger at Hitch's eye-rolling, leaning in even more to whisper, “She's an angry drunk.”

“So are you,” Eren scoffs, which earns him a punch on the shoulder.

“Hey, fuck you, Jaeger!” the angry drunk wails, slurring her words a bit. “So! Are you going to introduce us or am I gonna have to do it myself?”

The sigh that leaves Eren's mouth is short. He flits a hand between them, sweeping it back and forth with each exchange of names. “Ymir, this is Mikasa. Mikasa, Ymir.”

“Nice to meet you,” the raven-haired girl smiles, extending her hand again. This time, the gesture is reciprocated when Ymir takes it in her own, and her grip is callused and strong. She has the hands of someone who's fought hard in life.

“The pleasure's mine, sugar tits,” Ymir smirks, and Eren doesn't bother to stifle his pained groan. Before Mikasa's eyes can fully widen at her choice of words, Hitch slaps the back of her hand on Ymir's chest—missing her boob by mere centimeters.

“Alright, freckles. Help me pour these drinks.”

And then they disappear.

In a somewhat stunned silence, Eren and Mikasa watch as the girls make their way into the kitchen. “Sugar tits?” Mikasa says under her breath. Eren literally face-palms.

“God, I'm sorry,” he grimaces, rubbing his hand down the side of his face to the back of his neck. “Ymir's a little…  _ too _ friendly when she's drunk. She's not like this when she's sober, though, I promise. Complete opposite, really.”

“Is everyone drunk in here?” she asks quietly, blowing a strand of hair off her face.

“Looks like it,” Eren smiles, reveling in the cute, pert shape of her mouth as she puffs to blow on the stand again, having failed the first time. With a gossamer (very, very gossamer) hand at Mikasa's back, he guides her further into the apartment, careful not to touch her for longer than a breath. He sees her eyes scanning her surroundings, absorbing what they see.

Hitch stares at them from inside her kitchen, where she occupies herself with mixing drinks and pouring shots.  _ Nice, Fabio, _ she mouths to him, wearing one of her evil, sarky grins. Eren promptly reminds her to  _ fuck off _ .

Mikasa doesn't notice their little exchange, too busy admiring the place. Hitch's apartment is slightly bigger than Eren's, but this may as well be due to the fact that hers is not as cluttered and lined with unnecessary junk. The walls are soft and peachy, the curtains on the windows a pristine white color that matches most of the furnishing—even the damn Christmas tree at the corner of the room is white save for its pink and golden adornments. The place is neat and intricate, feminine in both appearance and smell. The mixing scents of perfume and candles caress her senses. Where Eren's apartment had mismatched furniture and dust and piles among piles of books, Hitch's place has Christmas lights and polished floors and vacuumed carpets and—oh, look at that, she's got a cat.

“Ow!” Eren exclaims suddenly, starting when something hits him at the back of the head. He turns to complain but Hitch's shout comes quicker.

“Hey! No ball throwing in my apartment, fuckwad!”

“Sorry, dude,” a blonde male chuckles behind him, retrieving a foam football from the floor. “I swear I wasn't aiming at you.” Eren gives him a look that says  _ yeah, right, _ but if he noticed it, he shows no sign. Straightening up, the stranger nods his head at Mikasa, his golden eyes burning into her with an exaggerated squint. She can't tell if he's drunk, but his ginormous frame makes her balk suddenly. Seriously, the guy is  _ huge _ . Even Eren looks small beside him. If he were to suddenly come toppling their way, he'd surely crush them.

He claps a heavy hand on Eren's shoulder, making him flinch. “Who's this?” he asks him, still staring at her.

The flippity hand motion thing again and, “Mikasa, Reiner. Reiner, Mikasa.”

“Nice to meet—” she's cut short when Reiner snatches her outstretched hand and kisses it suddenly, causing both hers and Eren's eyes to flare wide. He moans loudly against her skin, which makes heat rise to her cheeks and Eren slap a hand over his face _. _

“Mmm, your hand's soft,” he mumbles, inhaling deeply. His nostrils flare intensely and she feels his breath at the back of her hand. “And smells  _ so _ good, wow.”

Eren hides his face behind his hands in embarrassment, sighing, “Jesus.”

“Thank you,” she manages, blinking at the hulk of a man. He winks an eye at her and goes away, much to Eren's satisfaction. Before she can comment on what just occurred, he points a finger to the rest of the people in the room and says their names loud enough for them to hear and greet her.

“That tall guy over there is Bertholdt.”

“Heyo.”

“Mina.”

“Hiya!”

“Marlowe.”

“Hello.”

“Thomas.”

“Hi _. _ ”

“Rico.”

“Hey.”

“And that small girl you see over there—” he's interrupted by Mikasa's sudden gasp.

“Is that her?” she beams brightly, jumping slightly on her heels. Eren frowns at her, his mouth still open from where he'd failed to finish his words.

“Um. What?”

“You know...” Mikasa breathes, honeyed words pouring from her mouth sweetly. Eren frowns even deeper at the way her eyes start to glow. “Her?” She cups the side of her mouth as if she were telling him a secret. “Short? Blonde hair? Blue eyes?”

He raises a brow, the cogs in his brain whirring. “Uh...” But he has no idea what she's talking about.  _ Her  _ who? Who's short and blonde and has— “Oh! No, no. Annie's not here right now.”

He's surprised to see Mikasa's face fall disappointingly.

“Poop.”

“Anyway,” he says slowly, clearing his throat. “That's Historia, but everyone calls her Christa because—”

“It's her hooker name!”

Whoever shouted that didn't faze the girl in the slightest. She kneels up from her place on the large sofa, holding out a hand in greeting and smiling so widely Mikasa feels a little bereft of air. The girl is  _ stunning _ . Like, cover of a fashion magazine stunning. Her eyes are large and blue and her blonde hair falls just past her shoulders, half of it pinned back in neat little braids. Her nose is tiny, as is her mouth—as is her hand too. Actually, everything about this girl, save for her eyes and smile, is small. She looks like a miniature Disney princess. Mikasa wouldn't be surprised if birds started popping out of the furniture to dance around her whilst she randomly burst into song.

“Nice to meet you, Mikasa,” she says, with an angelical voice to match her ethereal appearance. “On behalf of all of us here, I apologize for anything inappropriate you may hear tonight.” She smiles widely at Eren, who smiles back. Dark eyes flit between them for a moment, studying the mutual respect they seem to share. She's about to reply when the girl gasps suddenly, leaning forward to peer down Mikasa's legs. “Wow, I love your heels! Prada?”

“Thank you. Ah, Gucci.”

“Aw, shoot. So close.”

“Wow, Eren,” Rico says, looking at the three of them over the rim of her glasses. “Look at you. So you do talk to pretty girls after all.”

“Please ignore every single person in this room while I go get my coat,” he tells Mikasa with a sigh. She almost feels bad for smiling, because she's slightly enjoying all the teasing he's receiving from his friends. It's funny to see Eren grow exasperated from all their playful jabbing. He taps his hand on the small blonde's shoulder as if telling her to keep an eye on their new guest. “I'll be right back.”

And then suddenly Mikasa wants to insist, to beg him not to go.  _ Take me with you. Don't leave me alone. _ But he goes and she's left behind to fend for herself in this apartment full of people she's not acquainted with, and she tenses uncomfortably but the ethereal, lyrical voice beside her is welcoming and warm.

“So how do you two know each other?” Historia (or Christa?) queries once they're alone.

For a moment, Mikasa's silent as she weighs the question in her mind. What should she answer to that? What would  _ Eren _ want her to answer to that? She can't be completely honest, can she? She can't say  _ well, we're exes and he was kinda sorta the love of my life until we fell our separate ways and now I'm engaged but here I am 'cos I can't stand being near my fiancé's friends 'cause they freak me out hahahahahHAHA! How funny, yeah!?!?!?!!!?!? _

“We're childhood friends,” she settles, which is truth enough.

“Oh, really?” Historia frowns. “Wow, he's never mentioned you.”

Mikasa's surprised to find herself slightly offended by this. Really? Eren's never mentioned her? Despite the gigantic chunk of history they share?  _ Never _ ? But then again, it's not like she has any right to feel this way. What they claim in each other's lives isn't exactly the easiest thing to talk about—and by all means, it's not like she's ever really told anyone about him. Not even Jean knows about Eren. Not even Jean knows…

Historia must've seen something in her expression, for she quickly follows up her previous comment with, “I mean, he never really talks much about his past, though, so don't take it personally. He just kinda brushes it off and says he'll tell us someday. Never has.”

“That's understandable.” Mikasa pulls Jean's coat tighter around her body. She misses her scarf, the red one, suddenly realizing how naked she feels without it. In a lot of ways, it's sort of her safety blanket. There's nothing for her to obscure her face behind, nothing to shield her from the way Hitch's eyes stare daggers into her through the armor of her fiancé's coat.

It's a few more seconds before she realizes Historia is still talking.

“…and he's always lost in those books of his, so it's a miracle if we even get to see him at all these day. He sort of just disappears into that world of his and doesn't come back out for weeks at a time. Months even.”

Mikasa frowns, blowing the strand of hair off her face after it falls over her eyes again. “Lost in his books?” she queries, trying not to sound as genuinely surprised as she is. Historia's grin to that is mesmerizing.

“Oh, yeah. That's all he does, you know. Read.”

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Well, it's just… He hated reading when we were younger.”

“Wha-hat? No way!”

“Yeah,” Mikasa smiles softly, recalling little Eren with his crazy hair and lively personality and the dirty soccer ball he always carried around. “He detested reading. Especially after screwing up his vision in that one fight back in high school. Reading glasses just made everything even worse.”

“A fight?” Historia squeaks, her ocean blue eyes enlarging. “Eren needs reading glasses because of a  _ fight _ ?”

“Mhm.”

“You see?” she groans, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “He never tells us this stuff. I just thought he's always had crappy vision!”

“Nope.” Mikasa' eyes survey the apartment, looking for Eren but finding no trace of him _. Where the heck is he?  _ “Not him.”

“Dang” the blonde whispers to herself, snapping her fingers. “Good to know.”

Despite how cute Historia is, and how welcome she makes her feel, Mikasa sighs sadly. Without Eren beside her, she feels horribly out of place, like an intruder. But, to be frank, it's not nearly as bad as being at that other party with Jean. At least here, the only things making her feel alienated are her obviously contrasting attire to the rest of the people's clothes, and Hitch's blatant staring.

For a moment, Mikasa wonders if Hitch just doesn't like her. She hasn't really given her any reason not to, but she's dealt with people long enough to know that they don't always require a reason for their scorn. Some people wear hate like a second skin. It comes naturally to them, and their targets are picked out at random, just because it's the type of people that they are. But  _ does _ she dislike her? And if she does, why does Mikasa feel that this would sadden her? She genuinely wants Hitch to approve of her. But why? Because she knows what she is to Eren? Because Hitch liking her may be the equivalent of everybody else accepting her too?

Her thoughts are cut short by Ymir's sudden screaming.

“Babe!” It seems to be directed at Historia, who jumps and holds a hand to her chest. “Watch me make a jäger bomb for the Jaeger Bomb!”

“I'm not drinking right now!” the Jaeger Bomb calls from somewhere in the apartment. Mikasa's ears perk up at the sound of his voice.

“What?!” Ymir cries, sagging her shoulders. “Why?”

Eren goes out of one room to enter another. Before going into what looks like Hitch's bedroom, he pauses at the door and says, “I have to uh… go somewhere.”

“Where?!”

He vanishes.

“ _ Somewhere! _ ”

Ymir's eyes twitch, and she slams her fists on the counter top, hollering, “You fucking turd stuffer, how could you leave me like this?!”

“Ymir, lower your voice,” Hitch says, smacking her arm. “The whole damn city can hear you.”

“Like I said,” Historia sighs sadly, “I apologize on behalf of everyone in this room. I promise we're all a lot more amiable when we're sober. Except, well, maybe Hitch.”

“That's okay.”

And then there's an awkward silence. It expands, and expands, and expands, making Mikasa fidget uncomfortably. She's never really been good with conversation. What do you do when there seems to be nothing more to say? Leave? Excuse yourself to go to the bathroom? Start laughing manically out of nowhere so that you scare the shit out of people and they go away?

“So how did…” she starts, clearing her throat when her voice catches, “you two… meet?”

Historia's eyes glimmer happily. “You mean, how did Eren and I meet?” She smiles when Mikasa nods her head. “Well, he trains with my girlfriend, Ymir, the loud one over there. I met him through her a few years back. They do all sorts of martial arts stuff that I know hoot about. He works there, too, at this gigantic gym place or something. Teaches little kids.”

Eren? Teaching kids?

Eren Jaeger, a  _ teacher? _

A raven eyebrow quirks up ironically. “Oh?”

“Yup! He's so sweet to them, it's the cutest thing ever. You should see how they all follow him around and call him Sensei. Most of the people here know him from that place, I think. Others, he met at his other job, probably. Like Rico. I think she's like his boss or something, I dunno.”

“What's his other job?”

“Dang, he hasn't told you all this? He works in the space department at a museum. Something to do with the stars.”

Mikasa feels a little flutter in her chest, the silent wing beats of a butterfly.

“The stars?” She can hear how breathless she is in her own voice. “Really?”

“Mhm. He's into all that astrological stuff. Keeps his mind busy, I guess.”

“…Wow.”

Eren and the stars, huh. It makes sense, but at the same time it kinda doesn't. Stars were always Armin's thing growing up. Eren would always moan and protest whenever he'd force them to lay down on their backyards to stargaze, and he always did it at sleepovers because Eren and Mikasa's houses were the closest to the sky, which really only meant that they were propped up on a hill, but whatever. And how nice those memories are. She can almost envision Armin lying beside her, ripping grass from soil and pointing out this constellation and that, eyes twinkling as he went on and on about “the outside world.” Eventually, Eren's moans ceased and he listened in on all the information, even matching his own enthusiasm at one point. And now he works in the space department at a museum. Armin would bust a gut laughing if he ever found out—that, or cry his eyes out. Both, probably. Yeah, knowing Armin, he'd probably do both.

Historia starts talking again.

“So are you staying here tonight, or…?”

“Oh, no. I'm going back to my own party. Eren's walking me there.”

“He is?”

“Yeah. I went for a walk and got lost and then we sort of ran into each other, so…”

“Ah, so he's helping you find your way back.”

“Mhm.”

“Sounds like him.”

“I'm surprised he hasn't tried to nail you yet,” Ymir murmurs when she appear beside them, leaning on the sofa beside the flustered blonde, who's clearly perturbed by her shirtless state.

She's got a sports bra on, at least, and muscles that make Mikasa's heart sigh with envy. Once upon a time, her own body had looked that good: arms lean and strong, abs that could cut a man. But now…. Well, now she's all bones and skin and shrunken boobs and a whole lotta sadness. Ymir's tanned skin emits a healthy glow that is as bright as the redness that boils in the small girl's pallid cheeks as she wails, “Ymir!”

The freckled goddess smirks. “What? It's true.”

“Don't pay attention to her,” Historia whispers to Mikasa, leaning close to her—and she smells so sweet, like cotton candy. “Eren's a good man.”

Ymir, with her crazy hair that's even crazier than Eren's and her glorious abs and her freckled face barks out a laugh. “When he's not sticking his dick inside anything with  _ boobs _ ,” she chortles, swigging back some more of her beer.

“Lovely,” Mikasa mutters, casting her gaze to the side. Historia squeezes Ymir's bicep, and call her crazy, but Mikasa thinks she sees her flex it in the small girl's grasp.

“Stop it,” the Disney princess scolds. “Also, where is your shirt?”

Taking another sip of her beer (and flexing again, dear Jesus), Ymir runs a hand through her disheveled hair and shrugs. “I got hot.”

“Hitch!” the one who sticks his dick inside anything with boobs calls out from inside her bedroom.

Hitch looks up from her drinks, sniffling. “What?”

“Where's my coat?!”

“In the closet, dumbass.”

“THE WHAT!!!”

“THE CLOSET!!!”

“Which one?!”

“The walk-in one.”

“The _ WHAT!!? _ ”

“ _ EREN!!!!! _ ”

The place goes quieter for a second, until a muffled thud echoes through the floor and then a loud, cracking squawk of, “I can't find it!” echoes even louder.

Hitch groans and pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing so heavily her chest sinks. “Oh, my fucking God. I'm gonna hit him.”

“I'll go help,” says Marlowe, rising to his feet.

“Help me!” Eren cries. There's more thuds. Hitch cups her hands on either side of her mouth to shout at him.

“Marlowe's on his way!”

“Hah?!”

“MARLOWE!! IS ON!! HIS WAY!!”

“WHAT!?!”

“ _ SHUT UP!!!!! _ ”

Historia giggles loudly, throwing her head back before covering her mouth. Even Ymir seems amused, a grin splitting her mouth in half.

“God. Those two are always screaming at each other,” the small girl twitters, shaking her head. “They're both so hot-headed; it's so funny.”

Mikasa can't help a small snicker of her own. “They seem close,” she says, fitting her hands into Jean's coat's pockets. She finds a little candy wrapper inside. She thinks of him.

Historia's voice brings her back.

“They fight like a married couple, but they've always got each other's backs.”

“Yeah, well, Eren fights with, like,  _ everyone, _ ” Ymir remarks. Historia rolls her eyes at her.

“That's not true. He's always a sweetie to me.”

At that, Ymir grabs hold of her small chin and grips it firmly so that the girl can't move when she leans in to smooch her hard on the lips and coo, “That's because you're the cutest thing in the world, baby.”

“Bleugh,” Mina grimaces nearby, shielding her eyes from their publish show of affection. Mikasa smiles softly. She likes those two. They're unlike anyone she's met before and the fact that they're both so different, and a  _ couple _ , and Eren's friends, makes Mikasa's chest fill with a nice, warm feeling. She's only just met them but they've pulled more smiles out of her than all of Jean's friends ever have _ combined. _

“So if you're childhood friends, how come we're only meeting you now?” Historia asks her after wiping her mouth on her shirtsleeve. Her attitude towards Ymir is dismissive, but Mikasa notices the blush that darkens her cheeks.

“I just moved here recently.”

“Oh, wow. What compelled you to do that?”

“My fiancé.”

“Ooh!”

“Damn.”

“So let's see it.”

“See what?”

“The ring, silly!”

“Oh.”

So she lets them see it.

And their eyes practically pop out of their heads.

“Oh my—” Historia gasps softly, holding a hand to her heart. “Holy—”

“What the fuck?” Ymir frowns, blinking profusely. “Are you engaged to the duke of England?!”

Mikasa smirks. “Hardly.”

“That thing must've cost your fiancé an arm and a leg!”

“I'm~telling~you,” Ymir sings under her breath, “Eren's gonna try to tap that.”

This annoys Historia greatly.

“She's engaged, Ymir Elizabeth.” Oh, damn. Middle name and everything.

“That hasn't stopped him before,” she snorts. Historia pinches her freckled shoulder.

“Can you not? Please?”

“It's not like that,” says Mikasa, looking around. Hitch isn't staring at her anymore, rather occupied with mixing drinks and munching on some cookies.

“Yeah. So show some respect, will you?”

Ymir's mouth explodes open suddenly. “I'M DRUNK A.F.! What the fuck  _ is _ respect? Can I eat it? Can I stick it up Reiner's butt?”

“Christa, calm your girlfriend, please,” crows Reiner from his place on the floor (and why is he just chilling there?).

“I'm trying!”

“Hey, yo, Mufasa. You want a shot?”

It takes thirty whole seconds before Mikasa realizes they're talking to her.

**—o—**

Mikasa, indeed not Mufasa: “Um, it's Mikasa. And no, thanks. I don't drink.”

Ymir: “Boo.”

Mina: “How old are you?”

Mikasa: “Twenty-five.”

Thomas: “So you're old enough to drink. Why don't you do it?”

Mikasa: “Never really appealed to me, I suppose.”

Ymir: “Wow. You talk so proper. Good shit.”

Historia: “Ugh. Ymir.”

Rico: “And what are you?”

Mikasa: “I'm sorry?”

Rico: “Your ethnicity. You look exotic.”

Mikasa: “Oh. I'm half Japanese.”

Thomas: “Oh, damn.  _ Konnichiwa _ .”

Reiner, still on the floor: “And the other half?”

Bertholdt, the tall one over there: “Reiner, you can't just ask people what their other half is.”

Reiner: “Why not?”

Historia: “It's rude.”

Reiner: “How in the fuck?”

Ymir: “Listen, blondie pecks. Fuck you.”

Reiner: “What did I do!?!?!”

Hitch: “Ymir. I need you.”

Ymir, going to where she's needed: “Don't you always?”

Hitch: “Chrissy, calm your girlfriend, please.”

Historia: “I've been trying to!”

Mina: “Where's Eren?”

Thomas: “Fucking Marlowe, probably.”

Ymir: “Okay, not everyone is a flaming homo like you, Tom.”

Thomas: “Ha! Says the angry lesbian.”

Ymir, clearly quite angry: “I AM NOT ANGRY!”

Hitch: “Ymir. My eardrums.”

Ymir: “Hey! Mufasa! Go check on papaya fucker!”

Mikasa: “Who?”

Historia: “It's a nickname of Eren's. Please don't ask why.”

Mina: “He has a fruit fetish.”

Mikasa: “He  _ what? _ ”

Bertholdt: “Oh, no.”

Rico: “Here we go.”

Mina: “A fruit fetish!”

Thomas: “Apples, pears, bananas. You name it. He'll fuck it all.”

Historia: “Don't listen to them. That's not true.”

Mina: “Papayas are his favorite!”

Ymir: “Hole in the papaya!”

Everyone, except Mikasa and Historia: “Hole in the papaya!”

Eren: “I hate every single one of you.”

**—o—**

Oh, thank Jesus Christ in heaven Eren's back.

Mikasa almost wants to collapse into his arms and let him whisk her away from everyone, gasping at the relief of having him beside her again. He smells so good, and looks so nice with his coat on and his hair in that ponytail and his shaven face and she missed him the whole ten minutes he was gone the same way she misses her red scarf and she's so ready to get out of here, as is he, but before making their leave, he paws at his coat and jean pockets and curses. “Shit, wait. Hitch.”

She looks up at him, her expression flat. “What.”

“My keys.” His keys are removed from one of her pockets and hurled across the room and into Eren's hands. “Thanks. Okay, everyone say goodbye to Mikasa.”

“Bye!”

“Bye!”

“ _ Sayonara,  _ sugar tits!”

“Ymir, Jesus Christ.”

“Oh please, do come back, Mia,” Hitch smiles, perching her chin atop the palm of her hand. Eren trots over to steal a doughnut from the Dunkin Donuts box that sits on the counter where she stands, stuffing his face with a glazed one before correcting her—with his mouth full, no less.

“Her name's Mikasa.  _ Meeh-kah-sah _ .”

Hitch rolls her eyes at him. “Whoop-tee-doo.”

Eren motions to the box of donuts in offering. Mikasa shakes her head, declining politely, and he literally scarfs the remainder of his snack in one bite.

“Yeah, Eren,” someone says loudly, but Mikasa doesn't see who. “Bring her more often, she's hot!”

“Okay, we're out of here,” he huffs, sucking the glaze off of the tips of his fingers.

Mikasa waves a shy hand at everyone. “Goodbye. It was nice meeting you all.”

The room bursts with a chorus of “Bye, Mikasa!” and a single  _ Mufasa _ is thrown in there too, followed by cackling laughter.

“Don't take too long, titan dick!” Reiner shouts to Eren. “You've still got presents to open!”

With a gossamer hand (very, very gossamer) at her back, he leads Mikasa to the door, throwing over his shoulder: “I'll be quick!”

“Titan what?” she asks him, wondering if the nickname is directed at his personality or his… well, you know.

“It's an inside joke” he sighs, still chewing. He waits until he's done eating to say, “Please ignore my friends, they're all crazy.”

“Historia seems nice.”

“Yeah, well, she's about as normal as it gets.”

The front door swings open and, lo and behold, a skinny brunette with a high ponytail and a green dress in a white coat Mikasa's seen barely an hour before appears in front of them. The woman jumps, nearly dropping the foam take-out container in her hands.

“Oh!” she gasps. “Lord, I was just about to knock.”

“Sash!” Eren smiles, his face brightening up whilst Mikasa's slowly darkens. “I was looking for you!”

Sasha sighs, looking down at her feet. “Well, I'm here. Late, but I'm here. I brought food from the party and— Oh, my God.”

Oh my God indeed.

Her light brown eyes go wide, features as rigid as the posture both her and Mikasa have simultaneously acquired. Her usually assertive voice is lost in a breath and—

“Mikasa?”

“Sasha Braus.”

Eren frowns, puzzled. “You two know each other?”

“Uh…” Sasha's the one to say. “Yeah. I'm…” She closes her eyes, voice wavering. Mikasa would've said something. She would've said something if it wasn't for the fact that what quickly followed was the cold, ugly truth:

“I'm close friends with her fiancé.”

Eren's jaw goes slack. “Oh shit,” he breathes. Mikasa's heart seems to have forgotten how to beat properly. Her mouth works at speaking but no words come out. Her muscles work at moving but she remains still. Her mind whirls and all she can imagine is the look on Jean's face once Sasha tells him where she's found her. And she regrets everything. She regrets ever showing up. She regrets meeting Eren's friends and stumbling into Sasha and leaving her fiancé behind—she regrets adhering to the luring whispers of her heart, because look at where they've gotten her. 

Mikasa swallows thickly.

Sasha sinks her gaze away.

Eren stands frozen among the midst of it all.

And the only thing either of them can think is:  _ Oh shit indeed. _

  
  



	10. Every Ugly Clam Has its Pearl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I wasn't going to update this fic until it gained more followers, but uh… yeah no. I literally wrote this in three days so a huge thank you to my lovely friend Emily ([MyTARDISsenseIsTingling](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MyTARDISsenseIsTingling)) for editing this mess and making sure it was presentable. And with that, here's chapter ten. *jazz hands*

As a child, Eren Jaeger had a peculiar anatomy.

His bones were made of steel, and thus they rarely ever broke or sprained despite the strain he always imposed on his body. They held him up, his skeleton the solid foundation that kept him going, moving—despite everything, despite mental and physical exhaustion, always moving. Moving. He never stopped moving.

His heart was a bomb, and it ticked and tocked and sometimes, out of nowhere, it exploded. It wasn't something he really knew how to control, for in his being he felt emotions so intensely that they tended to overwhelm him to the point where he felt that he could burst. Sometimes, the anger was so severe that it crept up his small hands and leaked through the knuckles of his clenched fists. And before he knew it, they'd met the cheek of one of his classmates, or the cold stiffness of a wall; and what once were the fragile hands of a child became the bleeding weapons that oozed onto the floor.

His muscles were springs, cogs, metal rods and all sorts of fleshy machinery. They whirred and churned and coughed out exhaust, spurring him onward like a steed without direction, with no rider to guide its way. From a young age, he was propelled into the harshness of the world, thrust forward to the cold, bitter realities that roamed it without so much as an ounce of preparation. He simply had to deal. And move. And fight to keep on living.

As a child, Eren Jaeger was a machine.

And every day, he wound up his screws and functioned. When other kids his age were playing with their toys and seeing the world from their fathers' shoulders, Eren had to see it through the lenses of his mother's foggy eyes, reflected in shadowy glimpses of fleeting possibility. Sickness had the tendency to eat away at everything he loved. His best friend Armin was always sick. His dear mother was always sick. People were always sick and Eren hated it.

Mom had an illness whose name he could not pronounce, or even remember. But it made her bones hurt, and her heart beat weird, and her muscles ache so bad that sometimes they cramped and kept her from moving. She too had a peculiar anatomy. Where Eren was made of indestructible features, Carla Jaeger was made of glass.

She spent her days in bed within a separate room his dad prepared for her to store all sorts of medical equipment. They connected to her wrists and made odd beeping noises that sometimes lulled Eren to sleep. Every single day after getting home from school, he sat beside his mother's bed and waited. Sometimes, he watched her sleep. Sometimes, he read her stories or did his homework by her side. Sometimes, he curled up beside her and took naps in her bed.

His mother hadn't always been sick, but it sure felt that way. He was four when it first happened, when a random ambulance showed up at his house after she fell. Eren thought she'd just gotten a boo boo and needed to get it fixed, but then months passed and she slept more and more and did less and less and he had to eat TV dinners and whatever his father cooked for him because she couldn't make the trip to the kitchen anymore. That made him sad, because his mom made the best spaghetti and now she rarely ever made it. It was all very confusing for him, and he couldn't understand why or how it all occurred, but eventually, Eren stopped asking questions.

It was the day that Mikasa had broken Sarah Hale's nose that he was taken to a "mind doctor" or, as his father called it, a "psychiatrist". They made him answer all sorts of silly questions, and jotted down some squiggly, cryptic notes and eventually concluded that Eren suffered from something called Insomnia and requested that they test him for ADD or ADHD or ABCDEFG something like that. They gave him medication for anxiety, and some other pills to make him sleep, and some other blue, funny looking pill that he wasn't sure was even given to him for. He felt tempted to ask if they had pills for big hearts that felt too much, for he surely suffered from that ailment. He didn't ask though. The question felt silly to voice aloud.

His father, Grisha, with the fancy-looking specs and long hair and doctorate in medicine, didn't make an effort to treat his own son, despite his ability to do so. It was a universal rule among doctors that one should never treat members of their own family. But honestly, that was just a whole lot of baloney to Eren. How could you  _ not  _ treat your own family? Isn't that what doctors are there to do? Help sick people? Eren didn't think that he was sick, but his mom was sick and his dad never treated her and that made him mad. A lot of things made him mad. But that made him angrier than anything else in the entire world because it was the one thing Eren hated more than anything: It was  _ unfair _ . And he could never bring himself to understand that.

Once they made it back home, Eren went straight to his mother's room and closed the door behind him, not even bothering to take off his shoes before climbing onto her bed. The smell of antiseptic tickled his nose, but soon he found the familiar scent of his mother tingeing the sheets he pulled up over himself.

In a matter of minutes, he was out. Funny that the doctors thought he needed sleeping medicine. All Eren really needed was his mom.

**—o—**

"Don't tell your mother I said this, but I am very proud of you, Mikasa."

"Thanks, Papa."

"No, listen to me. I mean it. I know your mother was hard on you for not being honest with her, but we're not always going to be there to protect you, so you gotta know how to protect yourself."

Her father took a serious lick of his ice cream and grumbled something under his breath, something Mikasa couldn't hear over the noise of chocolate sprinkles breaking between her teeth.

"And if you ask me," he huffed, fiddling with his wristwatch, still in his work clothes. "I think you should've broken more than just her nose, kiddo. You should've broken her entire face, taught that little racist brat a lesson."

Mikasa snorted softly, taking a lick of her own ice cream cone. "If Mama heard you right now, she wouldn't be happy, Papa."

"I know." He pinched her cheek and wiped a fleck of chocolate ice cream from the corner of her mouth with his finger. "That's why you won't tell her anything. Keep it between us, okay?"

The girl nodded. "Okay."

They sat outside a small ice cream parlor near their home, watching the sun paint the bellies of clouds with all sorts of wild, flaming colors. The day was ending soon. Ice cream season would be ending soon too, much to Mikasa's sadness.

Papa had taken her for a ride after leaving the principal's office; Mama had gone straight home to start dinner and calm herself. She was mad. Mad that the bullying had gotten so out of hand. Mad that Mikasa hadn't been truthful to her. Mad that the school authorities never did anything to prevent all the abuse. She'd cursed them all out in Japanese, and planted a stern eye on Mikasa and said that "we will talk about this later." Papa had intervened in an attempt to keep the peace, as he always did. When Mama was furious, she was a fearsome thing to behold.

"So, about this Jaeger kid," her father said out of nowhere. Mikasa's feet swung back and forth in the air as they sat on a bench, her eyes going wide at the mention of Eren. She hadn't told anyone of how he had egged her on, told her to fight back and strike those that abused her. But, apparently, the principal knew about his part in the entire thing. Fortunately, though, Eren was to suffer no consequences for his part in the entire thing; only Sarah and Mikasa were to pay. Sarah for being a racist little shit, Mikasa for crumpling her nose into pieces. Her hand still hurt, by the way. She'd have to ice it.

"The principal said his mother's ill. Did you know that?"

Somehow, in her heart, she already did. But to hear it pronounced and confirm her speculations was another thing. In a way, Mikasa wasn't even surprised. Just devastated. Eren had that sort of honesty that reflected on the outside. He was an open book, and the stories of his life were all written on his skin for the world to see. And somewhere along the lines, Mikasa had caught up on the hints that indicated he had a sick mother. And she'd decided that it was only her imagination. And now she saw that it was not.

Sometimes, being adept at reading people wasn't a skill she was proud of.

"No," and she wished that her father would laugh and slap his knee and say that he was joking, say that Eren's mother is completely fine and healthy and that there's nothing wrong with her. But the laugh, the joke, the knee slapping… they never came.

"And she's the one that's been making you lunches, yeah?"

"Yes."

He took a deep breath, staring at the ice cream cone in his hand. "We gotta find a way to thank her."

"That's why I made her that flower crown," she explained, gazing at her bruised knuckles. "I wanted her to wear it."

"Make her another one. We'll find a way to give it to her." Her father was silent for a long time. Mikasa was nearly done with her cone when he turned to her and said, "Is he the prince?"

She swallowed, blinking at him. "Huh?"

"Eren. Is he your prince? The one you and your mother use nicknames for around me so that I won't find out about?" Mikasa's silence told him all he needed to know. Papa cocked his head back with a smile. "Ah, he is, then."

"Don't tell Mama that it's him," she begged him, her tummy in knots. At the mention of the boy and her nickname for him, she found it hard to eat. "I want to keep his identity a mystery."

"I won't, kiddo. But tell me, you got a crush on him or something?"

"Papa, I'm nine!" she cried. Her father was laughing.

"So? I had crushes when I was your age."

''No, I don't have a crush on him."

"Then why are your cheeks all red?" He took her little pout between his fingers and squished it, making her grimace. "My little girl's got a crush!" he chuckled loudly, but then stared worriedly ahead. "Oh my god, no, wait. That's not a good thing."

Mikasa frowned, equally as worried, as if having a crush on someone were a disease she'd been afflicted with. "It's not?"

She was ready for her death sentence, but her father placed a hand on the top of her head and sighed. "Well, fathers are supposed to be mad about that sort of stuff, no?" His eyes on her were almost sad, but then they squinted and he frowned and pouted and grumbled. "So here I am, mad."

Mikasa hopped on her feet and walked over to her father, giving him a sticky, chocolatey kiss on the cheek and pleading. "Don't be mad, Papa." Her father looked down at his hands, smirking.

"Too late. You're growing up too fast and I don't like it. I'm mad."

"I don't have a crush," she assured him. Papa threw an arm around her and pulled her close to his chest, almost getting chocolate ice cream all over his dress shirt.

"I'm so proud of you, Mikasa," he breathed into her hair, closing his eyes. "Even if you're grounded and this'll be the last ice cream cone you have for a while, I want you to know: I really am very proud of you."

She hoped that Eren was too.

When he let her go, Mikasa's eyes searched his for a long moment. It almost seemed unreal to imagine all the things she'd done today. She'd brought a flower crown to school, cried, looked at Eren, punched a bully in the face and broken her nose, gotten suspended from school, gotten a glare from her mother and a low-five from her dad. Her heart felt numb under the weight of all sorts of different emotions. She was so overwhelmed that she scarcely felt anything, as if it had been another person that did all those things today, not her.

"Now," Papa told her, checking the time on his watch. "Hurry up and eat your ice cream—and get rid of all the evidence. Your mom can't know I took you out to celebrate your three-day suspension from school instead of giving you 'the chat'."

The girl smiled.

"Yes, Papa."

**—o—**

He was awoken by a set of tender lips, the kiss they planted on his cheek light as a feather, a breath of love upon his skin. When his eyes slid open and blinked away the last vestiges of slumber, Eren peered up to find his mother's honey-colored eyes staring down at him.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," she told him, even though the sun dwindling outside. "Sleep well?"

He moaned groggily and stretched his arms over his head, joints popping. It took him a while to realize that his shoes weren't on his feet anymore. His mother must've taken them off while he was sleeping. "Yup," he sighed, turning on his side to face her. Carla snorted gently out of her nose, picking at his eye to clean out some eye booger. He squirmed. "Mommy, gross." But she ignored his complaints and told him to hold still.

"How was school today?" she asked after getting a tissue and insisting that he blow his nose, to which he complained as well but she didn't even bat an eye at.

"Same as always," Eren sniffled, closing his eyes as she ran a hand through his messy hair. He didn't see how she smiled at him.

"Get into any fights?"

"Nope. Not today."

"That's my boy."

The feeling of her nails scraping his scalp were slowly lulling him back to sleep, but then an image flashed into his mind and he saw flower petals dancing, a fist splitting through the air and the loud, sickening crack of bones breaking.

He opened his eyes.

"Mom." Her hand ceased its stroking, resting on his cheek. "You know that girl I told you about? The new girl?"

"The one we've been making lunches for."

"Yeah. Well, she punched Sarah in the face today. I think she broke her nose."

"Did she really?" Carla asked. Eren giggled.

"Yeah. It was awesome, Mom. I loved it."

"Eren," she chided. The child untangled himself from the sheets and sat up on his knees, bright eyes boring into hers.

"Mom, it's true!" he exclaimed, bouncing slightly on the bed. "I wanted to cheer but that would've gotten me another detention so I stayed quiet."

"Why did she punch her?"

"Sarah was super extra mean to her today. Like, super _ duper _ extra mean, Ma. She deserved it."

Carla's sigh was weary. "Nobody deserves violence, Eren." But her son was adamant. He shook his head.

"Sarah Hale deserves it."

She gave him a look but all it did was make him laugh again and flash a happy, wicked grin. She noticed that one of his teeth was missing. Another baby tooth she wasn't there to see him lose.

Carla wondered just how much her son had to do with Mikasa breaking Sarah's nose.

But instead of asking, she voiced the second thing that had been sitting on her tongue. "Your father told me that you're on meds now. It this true?"

The boy's gaze sunk slightly, smile fading from his lips. "Yes."

"Where are they?"

He hopped off the bed and went to fetch his school bag. Three pharmaceutical bags were in his hand when he got back.

"I don't understand," the woman frowned as she read one of the labels, her son plopping beside her on the bed. "Why are they giving you pills for anxiety?"

"I dunno," Eren shrugged, twiddling his thumbs on his chest. "I didn't even know they made pills for that. They may as well make pills for happiness and sadness and—wait,  _ do _ they make pills for sadness too?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Oh, I need those."

"You do not," Carla told him sternly. He cringed at her tone. "Don't say that. I don't like that you're on medication."

Eren studied the crease between her brows for a moment before asking, "Am I sick, Mommy?"

This made her turn her head and scrutinize him.

She was silent for a bit, until a sigh filled her mouth and she set his medication on the bedside table. Laying down beside him, she threw an arm over her son's belly and whispered into his hair. "You're not sick, baby."

Eren closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in her scent. She smelled like sleep and morphine lollipops. "Then why do I need meds?" he asked her, cracking an eye open when she kissed the arch of his brow.

"I'm gonna have a talk with your father," was all his mother said. Eren craned his neck to get a better look of her.

"Are you gonna yell at him?"

"I never yell at him."

"Yeah, right."

"I'm just passionate at times, that's all. You know I love him very much."

"I know. That's why you're always kissing. Ew."

" _ Ew,"  _ Carla mocked, pinching his nose. "Cooties." She said something about him no longer thinking that kisses are gross once he gets his first girlfriend, to which Eren guffawed.

"I'm never having a girlfriend. Girls are weird."

"Are you saying I'm weird?"

"You're not a girl. You're a mom."

"Thanks," she mumbled. Eren yawned, rolling on an elbow and holding his head up with one hand. "What about Mikasa?"

"What about her?"

"What's she like? You almost never talk about her."

"I don't know. She's a little… different, Mom."

"How come?"

"I don't mean that she  _ looks  _ different. I mean, yeah, she does but that's not what I mean. She's very quiet and her eyes are kinda big and sad and she has a squeaky voice but never uses it." And her mouth is small, her lips are always pink and when they're not pink they're red and they're thin save for her upper lip that kinda curves up at the top and her nose is small too and it's kinda funny how small it is because it has this impossible point that's like, huh? How even? How is it possible for it to be that tiny? Can she even breathe right? Does her head implode with every sneeze? And her lashes are super thick and long, like God had too many lashes left from creating other babies so he gave all the extra ones to her. Her skin is white like the snow, but her hair is dark like ash and she always has it up in a bun and she's unlike anything he's ever seen before. She kinda looks like a girl taken out of a storybook. Unreal. "She's pretty," he said finally, which caused his mother to raise her brows.

"Is she?"

"Oh, yeah," he sniffled, wiping his nose with the edge of his wrist. "Very pretty. Makes me feel all sorts of weird."

"Like how weird?"

Eren took a long, deep breath, thinking. "Like…" a hand stroking his belly, "butterflies in my tummy weird."

"Oh, my," Carla beamed.

Eren frowned. "What?"

"You have a crush on her."

Disgust twisted his features. "Ew, that's nasty."

"Why? Isn't she cute?"

"I don't have a crush, Mom."

"Your ears are red!"

He scrambled for a pillow, throwing it over the back of his head and pulling it on both sides so that it covered his ears. "No, they're not!" he shouted into the mattress. Carla snickered, jabbing her fingers into his ribs so that he squirmed.

"Then why do you get butterflies in your tummy, huh?" she teased with a giggle. "If you don't like her?"

Her son's voice was muffled into the bed. A tiny, high-pitched wail. "They're friendly butterflies! Like, the type that wanna be her friend. Not kiss her! That's yucky!"

"Alright," she smirked, patting his little butt. "If you say so."

Slowly, Eren peeked his head out from under the pillow, and Carla found herself grinning at a pair of big green eyes. "Mom," he said suddenly, sitting back on his heels. His hair was a wreck. "I have an idea."

"Tell me."

"How about I give you my meds and you can have 'em instead of me."

"That's not how it works, honey." She smiled at his innocence, but her son furrowed his brows, not understanding.

"But why? Maybe you just need to try  _ my  _ medicine and you'll be cured." At that, the tenderness in her eyes fell, a mantle of gloom elevated. Eren studied his mother's expression, reaching out to place a hand on her arm. "Did I say something wrong, Mommy?"

"No, baby," she said, but the he didn't believe her.

"You look sad."

"I'm tired, that's all."

"You're always tired."

Carla looked up to the ceiling and threw her hands up as if to say  _ such is life _ . Sadness happens. Happiness happens. Illnesses happen. Such is life.

Eren's frown only grew deeper. Carla tapped his chin and whispered, "Come here," patting her chest, "I'm gonna tell you a story about a clam."

"Oh, no," he complained, but laid his head down on her chest anyway, his small body settling beside her lanky frame.

"Shh, listen." She wrapped her arms around him and buried her nose in his hair. It smelled of sweat. She smiled. "Once upon a time, there was an ugly clam, and this clam felt very different from all the others because it was so weird-looking on the outside. So, the other clams always made fun of it for being different, and that clam grew up believing that something was wrong with it."

"I don't like this story," Eren protested. Carla pinched the side of his thigh.

"Hush. Listen. But then, one day, divers came and harvested all the clams for food. They suffered the same fate, died as equals. But you wanna know what they found inside that really ugly clam that they didn't find in any other?"

He draped an arm around her waist, sighing. "What?"

"A pearl."

"A pearl?"

"Oh, yes. But not just any pearl. It was the single most beautiful pearl in the entire world." Carla took hold of his hand, passing her thumb over the small ridges of his knuckles. His fingers were so small compared to hers, but she knew that this wouldn't last long, for her child grew at an alarming rate. "You see, she explained after a moment, "clams that produce pearls are very rare. Mostly, pearls come from oysters. But this ugly clam that grew up its entire life believing that something was wrong with it held one of the world's most beautiful treasures, and it had no idea how special it was until its very last day."

"But then why didn't somebody tell that clam that it was special?" Eren frowned, curling his fingers around hers. "Maybe then, it would've known and it wouldn't have died so sad."

"I agree. Maybe if the clam had known more love it would've understood that what others say about him wasn't all that important. But that isn't the point. The point is, Eren, you're that ugly clam."

"Gee, thanks," he muttered. Carla laughed.

"No, no, listen. I say that because, as you grow, you will find people that will try to make you feel unimportant, but you should never let that ruin what you hold within." Her fingers found his chin and she lifted his face so that their eyes met. Her irises were gold in the afternoon night, reflected in her son's own gaze in the form of tiny flecks. She pushed his bangs out of his face, and smiled tenderly at the baby-like pudginess of his cheeks when she cupped them in her hands. "Sometimes, you may feel like the ugly clam, but don't ever forget that inside of you there is something tremendously special. You can do anything. You can be anything." A light kiss on the tip of his nose for good measure. "You're beautiful, my son."

Eren was silent for a moment, staring at his mother's thinning hair.

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"If I'm the ugly clam, then you're my pearl."

Carla smiled so brightly that her cheeks hurt. Eren smiled with her. His cheeks hurt too.

And they laughed. Because suddenly the thought of Eren being a clam and his mother being a pearl seemed very funny.

"Now, it's your turn to tell me a story," she said after a while.

"I don't know any, though."

She reached out and pulled a book from under her pillow. "Read me one, then."

"But Ma," the child whined. "I  _ hate  _ reading."

"Shhh," she breathed, sitting up on the bed. "I'll read with you."

A mighty sigh left his mouth. With a roll of his eyes, Eren crawled onto her lap. "Fine." He sat between her legs, his back pressed to her chest, her chin atop his head, and the book open in front of them. Carla held it, and it was Eren's job to turn the pages. Together, they read aloud.

At the back of his ribs, he could feel his mother's steady heartbeat. It beat fiercely. Intently. With the reverberating force of a sparrow's wings. The feeling of life against his back reminded him that he still had her. It was a wonderful feeling to be with her this way.

It felt very much like flying.

**—o—**

Mikasa couldn't sleep. Mama had grounded her for a week for lying to her, and because she was suspended from school, she had three whole days to lay about her house and do nothing. She watched Mama sew clothes and harvest flowers from their dying garden. Autumn was just around the corner and leaves fell from the tired trees. Flowers wilted with the days, as did Mama's stern frown until she was her old loving self again.

Mikasa didn't like that she was grounded, because it meant no chocolate or TV for a week. But she could understand why her mother felt so wounded. It dawned on her that perhaps she'd caused more harm than good by keeping the truth from her parents. She heard Mama crying one night when she thought she'd been asleep, and hated herself for her naivete. Of course her mother was hurt greatly by the abuse that she'd been facing; it was one she'd had to deal with her whole life! No decent parent ever wishes the same cruelty that they faced upon their child.

And then, one night, Mikasa started crying too. She didn't know why she wept. Perhaps it was out of boredom. Heck, with nothing to do for days anyone would be cajoled to tears. But she clutched Ningyo to her chest and sobbed, the tears streaming down her face freely. She thought that she'd been quiet, but then a soft creak indicated that her mother was at her door. Slowly, her lithe, warm body slipped under the covers and snuggled close to the girl. She wrapped her child in her arms and stroked her hair, asking no questions. The tears came and came without stopping. Mikasa cried herself to sleep that night, too.

The next morning, the girl realized why she'd been crying, and why sleep had been so hard to find those days. She felt guilty. Eren had been so kind to her, and to find out that he had a sick mother, and a difficult home life, tore her heart to shreds. If only she could help him somehow, return all the happiness he'd given her. A hundred flower crowns weren't enough to amend such joy.

She was playing with her breakfast one morning when the house phone rang. Pancakes weren't all that appetizing without chocolate chips in them. It was day three of being grounded, and Mikasa was already letting out an agonized moan.

"Mikasa," her mother peeked her head into the kitchen and signaled for her to stand up. "It's for you, love."

Another moan of agony left her as she brought herself to her feet. So much effort. All those restless days had made her lazy. Mama rolled her eyes at her drama.

"Hello?" Mikasa husked, voice thick with maple syrup. She clutched the handset to her ear, blinking slowly.

" _ Mikasa?"  _ answered a familiar high-pitched voice. Immediately, she recognized it.

"Armin!"

" _ Hey! How are you?" _

Grounded. Miserable. In need of chocolate  _ pronto.  _ "Good. You?"

" _ Feeling much better. I'm coming back to school tomorrow!" _

"Yay!" she cheered, crumpling the skirt of her nightgown in her free hand. "Finally!"

" _ I know! I can't wait to see you again. I'm sorry about you getting bullied. I know what it's like." _

"It's okay. It's over now."

" _ Eren told me you broke Sarah Hale's nose." _

She peeked over at her mother. She was busy washing dishes. Good. "I did, yes."

" _ And you made her wear the flower crown she ruined. Nicely done." _

"Thanks. How is he?"

" _ Who, Eren?" _

"Mhm."

" _ He's alright. Same as ever." _

She picked at a chipping fleck of paint on the wall with her nails. "Mmm."

" _ He fell at school yesterday during recess. Scraped his knee up real bad. He's wearing bandages and everything." _

"Oh no. Is he okay?"

" _ Yup!" _ Armin gave his usual hiccuping laugh. " _ Eren's always falling and cutting himself up. Don't worry. I'm sure he laughed it off like he always does." _

"Alright."  _ I miss him. I miss you. I miss you both. _

The two kids fell into a short period of silence, which wasn't uncommon with them. Armin rarely ever spoke unless it was to say something important, and Mikasa rarely ever spoke period.

" _ He says he can't wait for you to come back,"  _ Armin added suddenly. Mikasa felt her heart give a happy squeal.

"Really?"

" _ Yup! He really likes you!" _

Heat rose to her cheeks. She found herself smiling. "I like him too."

" _ Good! I'm glad I introduced you guys! I was scared you'd find him weird." _

"Well, he is a little weird."

" _ Hey, so are you." _

"True," she giggled, bringing a hand to her cheek. Her skin felt hot. "Do you know when I'll be able to see him again?"

" _ What do you mean?" _

"Ah," she shook her head, "never mind. Silly question."

" _ I see."  _ Silence again. There was nothing but their steady breathing until: "  _ Hey, I know!" _

"What?"

" _ Next time you go to school, take the bus in the morning. Don't have your mother drive you." _

"Why?"

" _ You'll see why." _

Even through the phone, Mikasa could tell Armin was smiling.

"Armin…" she voiced skeptically. The boy practically hissed.

" _ Mikasa. Just trust me." _

When did she not? "Okay."

" _ See you at school then." _

"See you."

" _ Remember to take the bus!" _

"I will!"

" _ Okay, bye." _

"Bye."

" _ Don't let the bedbugs bite!" _

"Huh?"

" _ I don't know, I just wanted to say that." _

"That makes no sense, Armin!" she moaned. They giggled.

" _ Bye!" _

"Bye."

Mikasa was too short to reach the base unit, so she pulled up a chair against the wall and climbed it to be able to hang up the phone. When she ended the call, there was a click, a small chuckle on her lips.

“Weirdo.”

**—o—**

"Are you sure you want to be taking the bus now, Mikasa?"

"It's only for today, Mama."

The morning was cold. Cool air crept up the skirt of Mikasa's school uniform and nipped her bare legs. It hurt to walk. Her knee-high socks only offered so much heat. Her mother was shivering.

"Goodness," the woman huffed, a cloud puffing from her mouth. "It's freezing out here."

It sure didn't help that they lived in the middle of friggin' nowhere.

"It's only for today," the girl repeated. Mama curled an arm around her shoulders and brought her close.

They walked, bodies pressed together, the mother's hand rubbing the girl's arm to keep her warm. Fog hung in the air around them. The tall trees kept away the morning light. Everything was gray and creepy. A bird flapped its wings. An owl's hoot echoed through naked branches. Mikasa questioned whether following Armin's advice had been a smart decision after all.

When they finally made it to the bus stop, nobody was there.

It was a lonely little place, really. A large willow tree hunched over a wooden bench whose legs were drilled to the ground to keep it from moving. The tree's weeping leaves hissed and swayed, their weary arms reaching down to nothing. Something about the bench, however, was thoroughly endearing to Mikasa. She smiled at it as if it had eyes to see her, as if it had feelings. Sometimes, inanimate objects had more history and character than living things. That bench was old in a human way. If Armin's grandfather were a bench, that's what he would look like.

"My God," Mama shivered. The tip of her nose was pink. "Remind me to bring a coat with me next time."

Despite the cold, despite her mother's soft Japanese cursing, Mikasa felt a smile blooming on her lips. She curved her small hand around Mama's. Her skin was ice. She held on tighter.

"Be a good girl today," her mother said. "No nose breaking, okay?"

"Okay."

"If anyone bullies you, you better damn tell me. I mean it, Mikasa Ackerman."

"Yes, Mama."

They waited. Five minutes passed and Mama was pulling a handkerchief out of her bra to blow her nose. Poor woman. She really was suffering.

"Here," she sniffled, pulling out another handkerchief for Mikasa to blow hers. The girl gawped at her, horrified.

"Mama, two?!"

"Two what?"

"Two handkerchiefs?"

"What about it?"

"In your boobies?!"

Mama threw her head back with a laugh that was uncommonly loud for her quiet nature. "They have to serve me for something, you know." She was referring to her bosoms. Gross.

Mikasa grimaced as her mother crouched before her, holding the handkerchief to her nose.

"Someday, you will understand. Boobies can be useful. Now, blow."

Mikasa blew through her nostrils until she felt that her eyes could pop. Mama wiped away at her boogers, making sure her nose was clean. "Useful for what?" the girl asked as her mother straightened, furrowing a brow. She regretted the question instantly.

"First of all, they keep your father very happy."

"Oh, barf!"

"Second, they are good for hiding things. Like tissues. And keys."

"I'm gonna be sick."

"Also, they feed newborn babies. That's the most important thing."

"Okay, I get it."

"You were breast fed until you were almost a year old. Did you know that?"

Mikasa shook her head, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Sometimes, her mother said some really surprising things. "Please. No more, Mama."

"You're only nine." She patted her daughter's flat chest. "Don't fret. Yours should start growing soon."

"God," she groaned. Laughter again.

But then a figure appeared in the distance and Mama's laughter stopped.

"What is that?" she gasped, pointing at it. Mikasa turned her head and squinted at the silhouette in the fog.

"Is it a ghost?"

"Hold my hand."

They held each other, dark eyes trained on the figure that was slowly taking form. It seemed big at first, but then grew smaller, smaller, smaller. Was it an animal? A deer? A monster? Mikasa blinked hard, praying the creeping shadow away. It did not leave them. It merely prowled closer. Closer. Still, it held no practical shape. It never stopped moving. It drew near.

"Mama, we're gonna die."

"Shh."

This is it. This is their end. Give all her dolls to Armin. Give Ningyo to his grandpa; he'll keep her safe. Give all her clothes to charity but keep her chocolate in her room because that is sacred and Mikasa will come back for it even in death. She hopes that clouds are extra fluffy in Heaven. She lived a good life. She'll remember her friends, her loved ones, Eren. She will remember ballet. She will always—

Leaves crackling.

It's almost here.

A chill crept up her spine and swarmed her skin with goosebumps. Mikasa curled into her mother, hiding her face in her belly, her hands holding onto her shirt. The scene was straight out of a horror movie. There was silence, save for their heavy breaths and the crackling of leaves under approaching feet.

Mikasa heard the figure come to a stop.

It's here.

_ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA— _

"Oh," her mother droned suddenly, cutting her internal scream short. "It's just a boy. Good morning!"

Mikasa went to turn her head but then, suddenly, she heard the raspy croak of a familiar throat.

"Morning, ma'am."

Holy mother of pizza crusts dipped in garlic sauce.

It can't be.

"Wait, Mikasa?"

"Eren?"

_ It is. _

He gawked at her. She gawked at him. Mama bounced her eyes back and forth between them. Confusion everywhere. Fog everywhere. None knew what to say.

An owl hooted.

A bird flapped its wings.

Falling leaves met the ground gently.

And it all somehow culminated into this one scene between them, this event of meeting once again. It was almost as if they hadn't met outside of school, as if a world where they existed without classrooms and teachers was unimaginable.

There was a stunned silence. And Mama's cough. And then it broke.

"What the heck?" That would be Eren.

"What are you doing here?" Mikasa asked, voice hardly a whisper. Her throat felt tight. Her eyes dug into his and she watched as Eren's face went red. He was blushing. Or was she imagining it?

"I…" he stammered, looking down at his feet. His hands were in his pockets and his school bag was slung over his shoulder, a serious case of bedhead mussing his hair. "Well, I live here." He pointed vaguely over his shoulder. Everything beyond him was covered in fog. "In that house right over there." There was no house anywhere that they could see. Still, Mama nodded. "What are  _ you _ doing here?" he asked her.

Mikasa went completely stiff.

Piece by piece, it all fell together.

" _ Next time you go to school, take the bus in the morning. Don't have your mother drive you." _

" _ You'll see why." _

" _ Mikasa. Just trust me." _

Fists clenched. Lips pursed. Shoulders squared. She squinted at the ground. This was all Armin's scheme. He  _ planned _ for this to happen. That cheese eater. That pumpernickel. That… cucumber… licking... yeah.

"We live nearby," Mama replied when her daughter took too long to answer. "So I'm guessing we're neighbors?"

"Guess so, yeah." The boy sniffled, wiping his nose. Mikasa prayed with every ounce of her being that her mother wouldn't pull out a third handkerchief from between her breasts and offer it to him. She didn't, thank the Lord. "Nobody ever comes to this bus stop," Eren said as he came closer. "It's always been just me."

"You're here every morning?" Mama frowned, hugging herself. "All on your own? In the cold?"

A shrug. His gaze was downcast. "My dad works early."

"What about your—" Mikasa took her mother's hand and squeezed it so fiercely that she let out a surprised yelp. Her eyes flew down to her, shocked.

_ Don't _ , the girl mouthed, shaking her head. Mama was speechless.

"She sleeps in late," Eren said, rubbing his eyes, catching up on the question despite Mikasa's efforts. His tone was calm, voice tinged with sleep, eyes a little red. He looked as if he'd just crawled straight out of bed.

"Well, then." Mama smiled. "Wow. Good thing we came today, huh?" She looked down at Mikasa, then back up at him. He was traipsing over to sit on the grandpa bench beneath the willow tree. "Now we know you're here and Mikasa can keep you company! Right, honey?"

Right. Yeah. Exactly.

Except that Mikasa may or may not have been shaking because holy pooping parakeet that was Eren Jaeger, the one who gave her lunches and told her to fight Sarah and made her cry a few nights ago and who her father thinks she's got a crush on and he's her neighbor. Her stinking, friggin' neighbor and Armin never told her anything!

And now, they were going to share a bus ride.

To school.

A bus ride.

Twenty minutes.

That's how long it took to get to their elementary school. That's how long it took for Mikasa to stop shaking. That's how long it took for her heart to beat normal again and for her lungs to open up and gasp because honestly, she was having a lot of trouble breathing around Eren lately. Like, a lot.

But she didn't have a crush on him. No. Never. In that, Papa was wrong...

Wasn't he?

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I already have the next chapter completely written and edited, which means that we get two updates this month instead of one. Yay! As always, thank you to everyone who hasn't abandoned this story and still leaves me kind reviews. 
> 
> Once again, a huge thanks to Em for helping me edit this. I love you, girl. (Psst, she's idk-anime on tumblr, you should check her out.)
> 
> Much love, and I'll see you all very soon in next chapter. Don't forget to leave a review and share your thoughts! Hmu on [tumblr](http://natiwati.tumblr.com/) if you have any questions.


	11. The Girl With the Snowflakes in Her Hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to Emily and Jess for editing this thingy thing! As promised, here’s this month’s second update. Hope you enjoy, and Merry Early Christmas. Thanks a bunch to those who are thoughtful enough to leave kind reviews. You’re the apple to my jelly. Or something like that.

 

When Mikasa Ackerman is scared, she freezes. Her muscles tense, every miniscule fragment of her body winds up tightly. She recoils, like a snail crawling back into its shell. Even her gaze seems strained, trapped somehow. And it's all very daunting for Eren to see. It always has been.

Desperate, his mind clamors, scrambling for ways to help her bounce back to normal.  Her eyes fill with terror, whereas mere seconds ago they'd looked relaxed. But now, they're wide. And now, the subtle smile that had tinged her lips is gone, replaced by the harsh shape of a speechless circle. Sasha's face is arranged in this same appalled manner, except that where Mikasa's reflects a light of dread, hers mirrors the shadows of confusion.

Eren's eyes trace every aspect of the woman beside him, studying the lip that clenches between her teeth, the hands that reach up to wring together, the subtle flutter of her lashes as her gaze falls to the side. She won't look at him. She won't look at Sasha. The far-off look in her eyes says that she's sinking into herself, doubting, questioning her place beside him once more.

Fuck.

“Jean said you'd gone out for a walk.” Sasha's voice catches, so she clears her throat. “I… Wow. Never thought I'd find you here, though.” She chuckles, raking an awkward hand through her auburn hair. The tresses fall around her shoulders in wild waves, having recently been set free from the high ponytail she usually sports.

Eren sucks in a sharp breath, but she queries before he can say anything, “Are you two friends?”

“Yes.” Mikasa suddenly finds her voice. “We're childhood friends.”

Childhood friends, Eren thinks. Yeah, okay. We can go with that. “I found her wandering outside all lost,” he says,  peering at the girl. Her dark eyes meet his. They cut into him, pleading. “I'm helping her find her way back.”

“ Oh! Will you be out long?”

Their gazes tear apart and Eren's finally meets Sasha's. “Nope!”

“ Good,” she grins, all the awkwardness seeming to have left her. Now, more than ever, Eren's grateful for her natural ability to recover quickly from uncomfortable situations, for Mikasa's rigid form pokes splinters into him, making him feel just as tense as she. “Because I,” the auburn girl sings, elongating her vowels, “brought you something from the party I know you'll really like!” She holds up the foam carry-out box in her hands, and Mikasa's nose tingles, catching the strong smell of food. 

“Fried ravioli?” she chirps, rubbing her pert nose. Sasha gasps, a bit too enthusiastic.

“ Yes!”

“ Awe,” Eren groans, giving his friend a grateful smile. “I love fried ravioli.” 

She shoots him a knowing wink.  “ I know.”

Mikasa wets her lips, her hands ceasing their nervous dance to clench at her sides. “Did Jean mention anything else? About me?” The question makes them all tense, but Sasha smiles kindly, her eyes strolling over to Eren before darting back to her.

“ Nope. You want me to call him and let him know you're on your way back?”

“ No!” All three jump from her sudden shout. “Sorry,” she whispers, her face going hot with shame. “Uh, no, please. I can handle it.”

“ Okay,” Sasha blinks, handing the box of food over to Eren, who's quick to pry it open and pop a ravioli into his mouth. “Honestly?” she peels her coat off and turns to Mikasa, “I don't blame you for ditching that party, girl. It's full of blockheads. I swear, I was three seconds away from pelting Jean's mother upside the head with a wine bottle. I'm sure you know what that’s like.” Her coat flies over to Eren's arms, and he throws it on the coat hanger by the door, giving her a look when she wretches the box of food from his hands and thumps his chest with her fist gently. “I'm putting your raviolis in the microwave. If someone eats them before you get back, it ain't my fault.”

“ Thank you,” he says. Sasha taps the cleft of his chin with her fingertip.

“ Aw, look at you!” she chortles awfully loud. “All nice and shaved. I was starting to think we'd lose your handsome face to all that nasty scruffy scruff.”

Eren frowns, not knowing how to take that.

“ It was good seeing you, hun,” she tells Mikasa, and that's the most they've conversed in all the time they've known each other. “Now that I know you're friends with this airhead we could all pick a day and hang out!” She wraps an arm around her in a rather awkward hug. 

Her breath is warm against her ear:

“ Don't worry. I won't tell Jean.”

“ Thank you.”

“ If he ever found out, he would kill us.”

“ I know.”

“ You for lying, me for keeping it from him.”

“ Thanks again.”

“ Thank me later. Over pastries. We'll talk soon.”

Whether Eren notices their little exchange or not, he shows no sign of it.

The other guests have begun to notice Sasha's presence. Some of them call after her, but she ignores them, saying in a louder tone so that Eren can hear, “Don't let him keep you too long—and watch out. He's got a real fruit fetish. Had a wild affair with a papaya once, too.”

The poor man throws his head back in agony, emitting a loud moan.

“ Don't let him tell you otherwise!” she exclaims when Hitch appears to grab her upper arms from behind and whisk her away. “He's been known as papaya fucker ever since! Everyone in this room can confirm this!”

“ Sasha, hey!”

“ Hole in the papaya!”

“ Sash! Did you meet Mufasa?!”

“ Mufa-what?!”

Boom. The door closes and the shouting comes to an end, replaced by Eren's long sigh of exasperation and the buzzing of the naked light bulb that flickers on over their heads.

“ I'm sorry,” he winces. “They're not always this embarrassing.”

Mikasa's lips tighten, straining not to crack into a smile at the apologetic look in his eyes. She stares at a few strands of hair that fall over his face, reaching past his lips, and (with a smile that does inevitably break through, after all) she realizes that this is the longest his hair has been. Ever.

It suits him.

“ That's alright,” she tells him, following suit when he goes to make his way down the stairs and out of the apartment building. He trots along a few steps ahead of her while she descends rather slowly, careful not to trip over her heels. Once she's landing on the floor and looking up at him, her smile still shines on her lips. “I think I rather enjoyed myself back there.”

Eren's brows float upward. “You… you did?”

“ Mhm,” she nods, gazing at the tendril of hair that he pulls behind his ear but ends up falling in his face again anyway. 

Eren smirks, the shadow of a dimple flashing.  “ Nice.”

For a beat, she contemplates belaboring: elaborating on Ymir's drunken zeal and Historia's kindness, the looks that Hitch kept giving her and the cryptic messages in her eyes. But instead, she waits for him to open the front door and hold it open and then… 

“Eren?”

He sniffles, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his coat. “Yeah?”

“ Why do they all call you papaya—?”

A garbled noise erupts from his throat, interrupting her.

“ Please,” he groans, grimacing. “Don't ask.”

“ Did you really…?”

“ No! I don't even like papayas!”

“Are you… saying that you prefer other fruit?”

Another garbled cry.  “ Mikasa, please!”

She laughs, and it's not that she's enjoying his pain, but she is.

“ Then why…?”

“ It's such a long story.” He motions for her to go outside, and after she does, he follows while closing the door behind him. “I don't even remember it that well— But I didn't screw a fucking papaya! I swear to God, I don't even know where that 'hole in the papaya' joke came from.”

She laughs again. She can't help it! Her giggles twist her face, so she covers it with a hand, and Eren wishes that she wouldn't do that, that she wouldn't keep him from something as beautiful as her silly little snorts, her sounds of happiness.

“ Sorry,” she says, waving a hand and making her way down the slightly icy steps. Eren matches her tentative pace. Partly, because he doesn't wanna slip and fall on his ass. Mostly, because he can't bear to take his eyes off of her.

They absorb everything they see, sucking in her presence with the hope of it being enough to sustain him until they meet again (because God knows when that will be, if ever) but somewhere deep inside him, he knows that it will never be enough.  _ This  _ will never be enough. What he has for her surpasses any hunger, any need.

He won’t even pretend to deny that.

“ Well…” Mikasa voices lightly, a feather above silence, pulling him from his thoughts. Looking at her now, Eren realizes—remembers—that everything about her is given off in humble portions. Her voice is quiet, her eyes soft, her presence faint; never does she rise a nuance above that. Unlike him, who shouts and curses and spits and fights and smears his loud presence over everything. Mikasa blends in with the wind. Eren howls against it. He's an outburst, a frenzy, a storm. He is the fire that spreads out and consumes everything, wreaking havoc in its wake. And Mikasa is the whisper, the drizzle that soothes his reckless soul and offers peace. 

And that, actually, is why this will never be enough. Nothing will ever suffice as long as there's that inevitable notion that she'll always leave again. And she will. She always will. She has to. Like clouds that stroll along the sky, coming and going, she passes through, for nature dictates this is the way things must go between them for now on.

She stands with her back to him, her feet on the sidewalk, her gaze cast to some distant point ahead.

And he stares at her, wondering if fire ever yearns to be extinguished, if flames ever reach out to the sky and pray for rain. He holds on to this temporary spurt where she's still present in his life even if it means losing pieces of himself, even if it means perishing. For her, he knows, he's more than willing to die out. Maybe it's true that some lights exist only for darkness, that some hearts beat only to break. And what an honor it is to burn for her. What an honor to have his heart broken by the hands that built it on their own.

She turns around, extending her arms at her sides as if she were presenting herself to him. Every part of her is saying  _ look at me, I am here, I am with you _ . Her feet wobble slightly in her heels and Eren smiles at her clumsiness, at the little line of imperfection in her excellent poise. And he is so glad, so damned, unbelievably glad that she is.

“ We have time, don't we?” comes her voice again. She's talking about his horribly embarrassing story, the one she won't relent until she hears. “Plus, I think you really want to tell me.” And he supposes that yes, they do. That yes, he does.

**—o—**

The wind sings with the Christmas carols.

Now that they're together, music carries a different sound. The holiday becomes more animated. The tiny specks of light that dot the trees and curl around their branches bloom with a little bit more shine, a bit more passion, all because he and she are there.

They stroll along the sidewalk, and it feels as if it's just the two of them alive, everyone else having long gone to sleep in the city. Most of the walk is made in silence, except for the five minutes it takes Eren to skim through the events of a very blurry, very drunken night.

Apparently, he'd been out with Ymir and Reiner when it happened. A few shots and some questionable liquids later, and Eren was hitting on a not-so-attractive girl. He claims to have forgotten what she looked like, but that people are indeed ten times more attractive when you're “schwasted” so it wasn't technically his fault. Mikasa nods her head in feigned understanding. (She's never been drunk, so how the hell would  _ she _ know?)

So then, long story short, Ymir and Reiner tried their best to get him away from the woman, which kinda sorta worked, until more shots and questionable liquids happened and Eren found himself waking up on some stranger's bed, holding back a shriek of horror when he rolled over to find “Shrek, okay. She looked like an ogre,” sprawled naked in her sleep and a hickey the size of—wait for it—a papaya on his ass. Yes, his ass. Mikasa wonders if that was actually a hickey. For all she knew, he may as well have fallen and therefore acquired the mighty bruise, knowing him and all his graceful glory.

“ I swear I never ran out of a place faster. I shit you not, Mikasa, I think I flew.”

“ You poor thing,” she mutters through a smile. Eren's sigh is long.

“ I know. And then…” He looks away, cringing. “Oh, God.”

“ Tell me.”

“ No. I can't. I don't want to.”

“ Eren. Tell me.”

“ And then…” The look on his face is one of complete dread. He swallows, adam's apple bobbing in his throat. “I showed Reiner and Ymir the bruise, and I swear they screamed so loud they alerted the whole damn city. Apparently, the thing looked like a papaya? Which I don't get? Because how can bruises look like fruit? Then Ymir said I probably got it from… Okay, she basically just said it was a hickey.”

But how could a hickey be so large? And why would Eren let anyone suck on his poor butt cheek? It's not like she remembered him ever being into that kind of stuff.

“ And what do you think?” she asks him, thoroughly amused. “Was it truly a hickey?”

“ No. There's no way a fucking hickey could be that big. First of all, it was on my ass. There's no way in hell I'd allow someone's mouth anywhere near my ass, sober or not. But then, Reiner said that… the woman's mouth… was so big.”

“ Ew!” Mikasa exclaims, gasping. “Oh, my goodness, Eren.”

“ I know,” he sobs, his features constricting. “God, I know. I cried.”

“ I'm so sorry,” she laments, her eyes radiating pity. “But how does that relate to you having an affair with a papaya? I don’t understand.”

“ I guess that one day, Ymir and Reiner told everyone the story, and somehow it came across that I fucked a papaya, instead of… yeah.”

“ That's not even remotely close to what actually happened, though.”

“ I know. But you know what? It was Reiner and Ymir retelling the story, and you can expect anything from those two.”

“ I see.” 

Bits of ice crunch under their feet, Mikasa's stilettos thumping on the sidewalk, Eren's Converse sneakers dragging along.

“ But, to be frank,” he reasons, holding up a finger, “I'd rather they pick on me for having an impractical fruit fetish than they know the truth. Because then, oh God. They'd never let let me live it down.”

Mikasa crinkles her nose, closing her eyes and shaking her head to erase the mental image of a papaya-shaped hickey. Gross. Poor Eren. He really does have the worst luck when it comes to hook ups.

“ Your friends are funny,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself to contain a small shiver. She's not exactly cold but… Eren's eyes on her elicit a wave of tremors within her. Adrenaline earthquakes, you could call them. They come from the high of being alone with him again.

“ They're really not.” And then silence is the music that replaces the city's muted jingles and becomes their little song.

They pass a restaurant, and Mikasa glances at the people inside. It's all mostly men, some accompanied by dainty women, but most of them sit with their gazes cast low, a glass of some alcoholic drink in their hands, their elbows propped lazily on the tables and bar they dine on. The place looks like a haven for lonely souls. It's where they all go to waste their Christmas away, to drown in a glass of their own loneliness and self-pity.

She peers over at Eren, glad that he isn't any of those men tonight.

“ What about you?” he chirps suddenly, lifting his gaze from his shoes. “Have you made any friends here yet?”

Mikasa's eyes sink at the question, clinging to the ground. “No,” she breathes, and Eren frowns at her, searching the eyes that won't rise to meet his. “My fiance is really the only person I talk to.”

A lip curls between his teeth. He chews on it, a little annoyed and disappointed to hear that. “But… hasn't he introduced you to his friends?”

“ He has. I don't think they like me, though.”

“ Why not?”

“ I'm not exactly the most sociable person.” Her voice matches her eyes, her expression. It's low. Sad. “Plus, his mother hates me, and they all love her. So that doesn't really help much.”

“ She hates you?” Eren queries, surprised. How could anyone possibly hate Mikasa? I mean, it’s Mikasa! “Why?”

“ She thinks I'm too quiet.” 

“ What a floof.”

“ Yeah. She wants me to be different. Bubbly. Outgoing. Everything that I'm not, basically.”

“ Doesn't your fiance ever say something to her?”

“ There's nothing he  _ can  _ say, you know?”

Pfft.  _ Bullshit, _ Eren thinks. Of course there is! How could any man stay calm knowing that his friends and mother make his fiancee uncomfortable? That they dislike her for no reason at all? If Eren were Jean or whatever the fuck his name is, he'd give them all a piece of his mind. And his fist, just for good measure.

“ I don't blame them, though,” Mikasa breathes, finally looking at him. “I'm not easy. I don't even know how Jean puts up with me anymore. All I do is… waste away. Maybe I do need to change. And I've been trying to. But I just… I don't know.”

_ Oh, dear Jesus Christ in heaven you have to be shitting me right now. _

“ Mikasa, there's people who are willing to love you just the way you are,” he tells her, all serious and stern. “You just have to find them.”

She lifts her eyes to meet his, and her heart clenches at the furrow of his brows, at the solemn line of his lips. She sighs, because Eren's always known the right thing to say to her: nothing but the truth.

“ Well, they're not it,” she murmurs finally, with the hope that it will bring the conversation to a close. But Eren scoffs so hard his breath fogs out.

“ Well, they can go fuck themselves.”

“ Eren.”

“ It's true. You shouldn't change for other people—especially for the sake of a man. If his friends and mom don't like you, that's their problem.”

Despite the severity of his words, a smile creeps its way onto her lips. She turns her face to hide it, but for some reason, she's not mad or even slightly bothered by what he's saying. If anything, she wholeheartedly agrees.

A flutter of affection beats within her. It's amazing really, how caring and honest Eren is. She thinks briefly of his scars. He's covered in them, and yet he's so gentle. Life has been harsh to him from the very start, and he's got the wounds to prove it. But where some people grow cold and sour and distant as a result of their struggles, Eren's compassion merely grows. The more he aches, the kinder he is. The more Mikasa shrivels into herself, the softer his demeanor grows to pry her shell open.

“ Hey,” he says, eyes alight with  an idea. “What are you doing for New Year's?”

Mikasa's eyes widen at the change of topic. “Oh. Well, Jean has to work, so I think I'm just going to spend it at home with our cat.”

Eren quirks a brow. “You have a cat?”

“ Yes. His name's Jiji. He's kind of a… scaredy cat,” he laughs forcibly at that, which makes Mikasa roll her eyes, “and he's always getting his head stuck in things. Particularly, tubes of Pringles.”

“ Sounds like a dumb cat.”

Mikasa shrugs a shoulder.  “ He's not so bad. Keeps me company.”

“ You know, if you want,” he voices slowly, “Sasha's having a get-together at her place on New Year's. Everyone will be there. You can come.”

Suddenly, Mikasa stops cold on her feet.

Ah, yes. There it is. The doe-eyed look she's always wearing lately.

“ I don't know if that's such a good idea,” she says, exactly as he predicted that she would.

“ It's a chance to make new friends,” Eren murmurs after coming to a stop as well. “It could be fun.”

“ But they're your friends, Eren.”

“ I can share 'em.”

“ But…” she bites her lip, and he wants so badly for her not to do that anymore. “Do you think they'll even want me there?”

“ Of course!” he nearly shouts. “Trust me, Mikasa. If they can put up with Hitch, they can put up with anyone.”

This gets her to smile a little. Good.

“ I feel like she hates me.”

Eren sucks in a breath, not even bothering to contradict her.  “ She hates everyone.”

“ Not you.”

“ Oh-ho,  _ especially  _ me,” he laughs, and it's true. Why she hasn't just shot him or chopped his dick off in his sleep is a mystery to him, considering all the times he's purposely made her life impossible just for the fun it. “Don't let her get to you. She's bitchy even to the people that she likes. But she has a good heart, trust me. We've been friends for years for a reason.”

They start walking again, and his eyes never leave her. He's realizing lately, that they've developed a dependency on her. When he's looking at Mikasa, the stars hold the moon, and the ground is solid beneath his feet, and he can stand tall and strong because life makes sense. Everything makes sense, if only for a second.

“ I don't know, Eren,” she sniffles. Lightheartedly, Eren pats her on the back, and it's kinda funny when she stiffens. Funny, because her eyes go huge. Funny, because he almost can't believe that he just touched her. Funny, because with the way his eyes admire from afar, one would think that making contact with her wouldn't feel this simple. Sparks flying, fireworks exploding, electricity surging through him—there's honestly none of that. It's just his hand on her back, touching a solid object. He thinks he might just go ahead and touch fire next, touch the sharpest edge of a knife. Because holding what kills you shouldn't feel this right.

“ You don't have to go if you don't want to, but it's a choice.” His hand has long retreated, but her shoulders are still stiff. “Our doors are always open for you, Mikasa. Any friend of mine is a friend of theirs.”

“ We're friends?” she peeps, sniffling again. When he looks at her again, he sees that in her eyes there's a different kind of startle. They hold tenderness now. Care.

“ I don't know,” he croons, struck by her expression. “Are we?”

The smile she gives him makes her eyes disappear. “Sure.”And holy shit, he could honestly cry, she's so beautiful.

“ Well, there you go. Your first friend in the city.” 

Her eyes are still crinkled and her smile is still big, and Mikasa should smile more often and with this much intent, because the light giggle that follows puts the sun in place, makes the sky shift and the Earth keep spinning.

“ Someone I already knew,” she quips, her smile fading. Eren throws up his hands with a dry laugh.

“ Don't sound so disappointed.”

“ I'm not!” she's quick to gasp. “I'm really happy that we're friends again.”

“ Me too. Otherwise, you'd be fucking helpless.”

Mikasa bumps her shoulder into his, making him stumble lazily. “Harr harr,” she smiles. Eren smiles too.

“ Aren't you cold?”

“ No,” is her little sigh. “But I can't feel my toes anymore.”

He peeks down at her feet, noting that they don't wobble anymore. Good for her. She's getting the hang of walking in those sharp-heeled contraptions. Honestly, he's always loved her feet, 'cause they're so cute and tiny. But Mikasa always found that gross, and crinkled her nose at her nasty, crooked ballerina toes that Eren liked to pinch because it made her laugh, and her laugh is the single greatest sound in the universe so he'd make it his damn mission to memorize all her ticklish spots.

And he did. God, did he memorize them.

He wonders if they're still the same. And does Jean ever bother to exploit them? Does he ever dig his fingers into her ribs and make her laugh until she's screaming? Does he ever sneak his hand into the crook on her neck when she's busy doing something just to see her squirm and get distracted and try to shrug him off? Does he ever slip his palms behind the crooks of her knees and watch her melt against him? The little dimples on her lower back were Eren's personal favorite. Especially when she'd let him trace them with his tongue. Haha.

_ Fuck my life. _

“ Want some hot chocolate?” he asks, trying not to think of his tongue on her butt dimples because it's totally not okay to think about licking engaged women's butt dimples, Eren. 

“ Where?”

“ Rose Park has this little stand—”

“ Perfect.” Mikasa hooks her arm around his and whisks him away to cross the street beside them. “Let's go.”

“ Ah—” Holy shit, holy fliggity shit on a pogo stick _ she is holding his arm _ . His arm. Holding it. Her. Eren's heart shoots up to his throat. “Alright, then,” and he could honestly choke on it. Holy fucking fuck, he could choke on it and throw it up because Mikasa's touching him, okay. Mikasa fucking Ackerman!

_ Third or fourth or I'm not exactly sure but whatever time she touches me: _

_ To pull me across the street after I'm done thinking about pressing my tongue on the dimples above her ass. _

_ Nice. _

They arrive at the park, and what Mikasa supposes were once lush rose bushes now stand bare along the walkways made of cobblestone, their emaciated branches looking like they could crack under the slightest weight of snow.

She lets go of his arm, and they walk side by side in stiff silence. A man plays a saxophone somewhere near a bench, a woman shouts for her dog, a couple prance along hand in hand. They cross a bridge made of stone, and a half-frozen pond sprawls beneath it.

This park is like its own little world. The hooting and tooting of cars is muffled in the distance, the light of the buildings replaced by that of the trees and lampposts erected all around. In its detachment from the rest of the world and its wealth in nature, Park Rose feels like a gasp of fresh air in the endless cloud of smoke that is the daily life of a city.

The silence Eren and Mikasa share this time is comfortable, the kind that can only be appreciated when there is nothing more to say. She could comment on the park. He could comment on her grabbing his arm the way she did earlier. They could both speak if they really wanted to, but they don't. The noise of mild activity around them is enough for now.

Until they reach what looks like a humble little coffee stand inhabited by an elderly man with a beanie hat and a thick gray mustache above his upper lip, whom recognizes Eren the moment he sees him.

“ Eren!” the man cackles, his smile creasing wrinkles around his eyes. “Merry Christmas! It's good to see you!”

“ Merry Christmas, Gramps,” he grins, slapping a hand on the metal counter. “They got you working on a holiday?”

“ What can I say?” the old man shrugs. “It's better than nothing.” His soft eyes glance over at Mikasa, growing huge the moment they swallow what they see. “And who's the lovely young lady?”

“ Mikasa. She's a friend.”

“ Hello,” she waves. The man's eyes shrink to slits with a pleased smile.

“ Well, I must say: you are the single most beautiful thing I've seen all day.”

“ I'm gonna tell Linda you said that,” Eren quips calmly. Pixis (that's what his name tag says) barks out a laugh.

“ I'm merely observing, kid.”

“ Alright, Grandpa Dot.” Eren thumps his fist in the countertop. “That'll be the usual for me and a hot chocolate for the lady.”

“ With marshmallows?”

“ Yea-up! And whipped cream.”

“ How much?”

“ Plenty.”

Mikasa looks at Eren. He shoots her a wink.

“ Coming right up.”

“ I'll pay you back,” she whispers to him as their beverages are being prepared. He pulls out his wallet and gives her a bored look.

“ Don't you dare.”

The girl purses her lips, sighing through her nose before knocking him one right on the shoulder.

“ Ow!” Eren claps a hand over the potentially bruising area and gapes at the old man. “Are you seeing this?”

Pixis clicks his tongue and waves an empty cup at her. “She's an abuser.”

“ She is!”

“ I am not.”

“ Spike her hot chocolate, Gramps. Do it.”

“ No!”

“ Sure, but I'll have to charge you extra.”

“ Please,” Mikasa begs, “not the hot chocolate.”

“ Don't worry, hun,” he says, shaking a can of whipped cream and holding a hand up to the side of his mouth. “Eren's always liked rougher women.”

Mikasa's eyes go wide at the sexual innuendo, noticing the way he pumps the can. Despite himself, Eren snickers loudly.

“ Don't listen to him,” but he can't stop laughing.

_ Great _ , Mikasa thinks. _ I am surrounded by perverts. _

Pixis and Eren chat for a little bit, catching up on things like sports and the older man's pregnant daughter. They seem to share a past, and ask each other rather personal questions. When the drinks are prepared and paid for, both men wave out their respective goodbyes, promising to meet up on a day when they're both free of work to catch up over some coffee (but not drinks, apparently; the old man claims to have been sober for six years now). Eren calls him “Gramps”, Pixis calls him “son”, and Mikasa, for some reason, can't stop smiling.

Her cheeks hurt.

“ How is it?” Eren asks her when he sees her taking a sip of her drink. They're walking again.

“ Good,” she nods, and it doesn't taste as great as the hot chocolate Eren had prepared for her back at his apartment, but it's still good enough. “Why is it that everytime I see you you try to feed me chocolate?”

Eren smirks and makes an “I dunno” sound, but when he takes a sip of his own drink, she swears she hears him say under his breath, “You could use the pounds.”

She squints her eyes at him.

He gives her a dazzling grin.

And it's very hard to be annoyed at a face like that. Truly.

“How’s your coffee?”

A shrug. “It’s alright.”

“Don’t twitch.”

“I’ll try not to.”

With a sudden flash of dread, Mikasa realizes where they're going. Eren's leading them right back out of the park.

No.

No, no.

She doesn’t want to leave yet.

“ Can we sit?” she blurts out suddenly. Eren blinks. 

“ Uh… Sure, yeah.”

They spot a bench nearby, and she's quick to trot up to it and sit down. “These heels,” she sighs when he sits beside her, a hand rubbing her ankle. “They're killing me.”

“ I don't know how you even manage, honestly.” Eren's eyes are fixed on something in the distance, but they fall on her after a while. She's staring at him. Blatantly staring. “What?”

“ I just…” Mikasa shakes her head, smiling softly. “I just thought of something.”

“ What is it?”

“ All this. It's so familiar.”

“ What do you mean?”

“ You and me, sitting on a bench, waiting for nothing in particular.” Her eyes go cloudy with memory. They reminisce. “Kinda like when we were kids?”

Eren throws his head back, gazing at the sky. “Ah, yeah,” he says, a cloud dissipating from his mouth. He spots not a single star above them, all of them buried by a murky sheet of light pollution. “That's right.”

“ Except,” Mikasa breathes, mimicking him. She too leans her head back and stares at the massive sheet of gray. “We're not kids anymore.”

“ Nope.” He sighs, closing his eyes. Mikasa turns her head to face him, gawking at his presence by her side. It's almost like she can't fathom that he's there with her, that they're here, that they've grown into adults. Her eyes run along his neck, the protruding bump of his adam's apple, the tip of his nose and the dense length of his eyelashes.

A single hair slips out of his ponytail.

She watches that too.

He's so close she could touch him, feel the warmth of his skin, and it almost appalls her how different he is from the child she first met when they were nine in a park very much like this one. With a soft smile that he can't see, she thinks of little Eren with his bright eyes and loud voice and incessant cussing, the scrapes on his knees and the dried-up blood he'd failed to wash off in time. His hands are curled around the paper coffee cup, and she spots the scars on them, imagines the calluses on his palms and fingertips from restless days of strumming away in his guitar, or drawing out of boredom, or holding his mother's feeble hand—not that the latter would cause him any external wear, but hands always have a way of showing how a person's had to live their lives. She thinks back on when she'd shaken hands with Ymir, how her mighty grip spoke of years of struggle and survival, and she hasn't touched Eren's hands lately but when they'd briefly made contact with hers back when he was offering her  _ Illusions _ , she remembers them feeling soft, warm. Inviting.

“ God…” he groans suddenly, making her blink. “Our bench. I wonder if it's still there?”

Mikasa's thoughtful for a moment, staring at his knuckles. Funny that they have no scars, since they're the single most abused part of his body. How many times hadn't she seen them scraped raw, bleeding after being reeled into walls, floors, other people. And yet, they've always healed, erased the signs that show he's always fought back. Always.

“ I wouldn't know,” she whispers, and after a silent beat or two, his head turns to look at her. Even his eyes seem to gasp.

“ Hey, maybe this could be our new bench!”

“ Our new bench?” 

Eren's eyes grow even wider.  “ Fuck yeah!”

Smiling at his enthusiasm, Mikasa nods her head. “Okay.”

“ What should we call it?”

“ Hmm…” She holds the tip of her index finger to her chin, thinking. “The… Eren… and Mikasa Bench?”

Eren rises to his feet, turning to extend his arms in dramatic presentation. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he declares to an invisible crowd. “This bench has officially been named: The Eren and Mikasa Bench.”

Mikasa crinkles her nose. “No.”

“No what?”

“Never mind. It deserves a better name than that.”

“Like?”

“The… Bench… Bench…?”

He snorts. “The Shit Bench.”

“The I'll Punch You in the Face Bench.”

“The Bench of Death.”

“The Avenge Bench.”

“Avenge Bench?” Eren sputters, barking out a loud laugh that makes Mikasa snort. “That sounds like some crazy  _ Star Wars  _ sequel or something.”

She crosses one leg over the other, lowering her voice to sound like the narrator of one of those movie trailers. “Star Wars: Return of the Avenge Bench.”

Eren mimics her tone, sounding even deeper. “Luke, I am your bench father.”

“Seek the Avenge Bench. Go.”

“You! Shall not! PAAASS!”

“Eren. That's from  _ Lord of the Rings. _ ”

“Oh, shit. Yeah.”

Mikasa  _ tsk _ 's in disappointment, shaking her head. “One does not simply accidentally quote _ Lord of the Rings. _ ”

“One does not simply take that line seriously anymore,” he scoffs, taking a sip of his coffee.

“True.”

“Yep.”

“God,” she laughs, slapping a hand on her cheek. “We're terrible.”

Eren slumps back beside her with a soft groan, smirking. “You're the one who suggested we call this bench the Avenge Bench.”

“You said 'bench father'.”

“Mikasa. Avenge Bench, though.”

“You're the one who started talking about naming a bench in the first place.”

“You're asking to get hypothermia in that dress.”

“You accidentally quoted Gandalf thinking it was  _ Star Wars _ .”

“You need to be quiet.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“I think I'll go to Sasha's New Year's party.”

“Wait.” Eren straightens, his eyes boring into hers. “Are you serious?”

Mikasa shrugs a shoulder, tilting her head to the side. “What's there to lose?”

“Yes!” He beams so brightly, even his little dimple shines. “That's the spirit!”

“I'm excited.”

“Me too!”

“Will there be music?”

“Oh yeah.”

“And dancing?”

“Noting that Ymir and Hitch will be going, yes.”

She gives a long, wistful sigh, her rigid posture wilting slightly. “I haven't danced in ages.”

“You can dance with them. But watch out. Ymir swears she's a break dancer but,” he pulls a face. “She ain't.”

“Will there be alcohol?”

“You're joking, right?” She's dead serious. “Yes, Mikasa. There will be alcohol.”

“You know,” she whispers, pulling her hair over her left shoulder. “I still don't drink.”

Eren watches her take a sip of her hot chocolate, following the length of her ponytail, the curl that coils at the end. “Still following those strict diets of yours?”

“What can I say?” she shrugs, glancing at the paper cup in her hands. “They're too much of a habit now.”

He sighs, watching her back align, rigid and poised as usual. Eren's own posture slumps with an arm bent on the back of the bench. “You don't have to drink if you don't want to. I'll make sure no one pressures you if that's the case.”

She gives him a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

“No prob.”

“What should I wear?”

“To the party?” She nods, and if it were up to him, he'd have her wear… Well, never mind. “Anything. Whatever it is you girls wear to go out.”

She blinks. “What do girls wear to go out?”

“I… don't know?”

Mikasa pouts. “Dang.”

“Jeans,” he settles, downing a swig of his drink. “Just wear jeans. It doesn't matter.”

“Okay. I haven't gone to a normal party in years. They've all been… well,” she motions vaguely to her fancy attire.

Eren simpers. “I think you'll have fun, Mikasa. My friends are a little on the weird side, but they're all good people.” He lifts his gaze from the ground to meet her eyes, and Mikasa has always hated snowless Christmases, for they are bereft of joy without snow. The silhouettes of denuded trees have always felt daunting, their scraggly bodies symbolizing loss, loneliness. But tonight, the world feels different. The trees are clad in dozens of small lights, all culminating to this sliver of space brought to earth, Eren and Mikasa's own little universe. They blur like stars in the distance, surrounding them in the background that reflects in Eren's glinting eyes. And he says, “I'll make sure not even a second goes by that you feel lonely. I promise.” And Mikasa feels dizzy from her lashes to her toes because she doesn't deserve him. Nobody does.

“You're too good to me, Eren,” she says sadly. All he does is shrug a shoulder and laugh.

If she could take that sound, his laughter, and chop it up into a million tiny pieces to scatter across the night sky, stars would be more radiant. She's sure of it.

“It's what friends do.”

Mikasa sighs. He doesn't get it. Of course he doesn't. There's goodness engraved in him so deeply, he doesn't see his generosity as acts of kindness, only as the natural thing to do. He doesn't get that Mikasa hasn't had a friend in ages, that Jean is the nicest person she knows, that him being so selfless, so honest, so caring, dumbfounds her. And she thinks again of how much they both have changed, but how some things aren't all that different. Eren still possesses the altruism that he had as a child, the same selfless care for weaker things. And with childish wonder and amazement, Mikasa allows herself to be the weaker one tonight, to succumb to the palpitations of her heart, the mighty booms that reverberate and remind her she's alive, that there's still so much more left of her life worth living.

It's when a single flake of snow falls between them that her eyes tear from his to gaze around. Another snowflake follows, and then some more, until soon they're too many to count and Mikasa's holding out her hands and giggling. “It's snowing!” she exclaims. And it's dazzling really: the lights, the flakes, her smile. Eren closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, discovering a mighty boom of his own pounding in his chest.

When his eyes bloom open, it's as if the world too takes a deep breath. On every tiny flake of snow clinging to her lashes, Eren finds the scattered pieces of his soul. If he were to gather her, all of her, in his hands, he would garner himself as an entire being. He feels the need to hold her, bring her close to his chest, feel her heartbeat and remind himself that he has one too. He is lost somewhere within her, yearning to be found, and watches as traces of himself peek through her spirit—for in her laugh, he finds his breath. In her eyes, his own reflection. In her voice, he finds the meaning of his life.

How can he live without her?

A life without Mikasa is like having lungs but no air.

Specks of white meet her inky hair, and she's too busy blowing the snowflakes off of the palms of her hands to see it. Her rosy lips pucker and her cheeks puff out, and when a mirage of white flecks dance away from her fingers, her eyes crinkle with delight. “Did you see that?” she asks him. Eren nods and snorts at her ecstatic little squeal. Ah, he'd almost forgotten. Mikasa loves the snow. 

It's a breath, a whisper within him. 

Unbidden, uncouth… 

_ I love you. _

Eren's stunned in the sudden revelation, overwhelmed with shame. Layers of his heart slowly peel away and fall, until he's naked to the core and all that's left of him is oozing, throbbing honesty. He hopes that somehow she can hear him. That somehow, she's able to respond. Through his soul, his essence tells her:  _ I love you, Mikasa Ackerman. Your happiness is my happiness. Your life is my life. I live for the moments in which you smile, for your little bursts of joy. You hold the sky over my head, you are the veins that keep life flowing within me. _

_ So live. _

_ Please, live the best life that you can. For the both of us. Live. _

With a breath that blows as steam, he rips his eyes away from her and stares at some blurry point in space. There's a sinking feeling in his chest, and his hands reach out a second too late to save himself. He's tumbling, fumbling, falling. He'll be damned, truly. The fool. He has fallen in love—all over again—with the girl with the snowflakes in her hair.

“I think we should be heading back,” she mutters, smoothing down the skirt of her dress to brush off some flakes. “Jean will be calling me soon.”

And just when he felt like flying, she brings him crashing to the ground.

“Right, yeah. Let's go then.” Eren rises to his feet, finishing the last of his coffee and disposing it in a nearby trash can. Sighing, he glances up at the sky. The snow is really coming down now, flakes dusting kisses on his cheeks and face, consoling him in a way. Mikasa trots up to stand beside him, and without another word they both commence to walk. It's not until some moments later that he realizes he's all on his own.

Peering over his shoulder, Eren finds her standing with her back to him, her gaze fixed on the bench she cannot bring herself to abandon.

“Hey, slowpoke,” he calls, making her jump. “You coming?”

“Yes!” She whips around and her heels knock on the cobblestone floor, a hasty gallop of wobbling feet to approach him. “Sorry about that.”

“What were you doing back there?” he asks when they're walking together again. The girl merely shakes her head and waves him off.

“Nothing.”

He will never tell her this, but every second that he's with her, he has to bite back his emotions and cram them into the farthest reaches of himself, pretend that he doesn't ache to uncap the affluent current of affection that's itching to come out.

And she will never tell him this, but Mikasa was memorizing the exact location of their new bench. She too crams her emotions into a very private cellar within herself. But, unlike him, she honors and cherishes them intensely.

They fill her soul.

**—o—**

Life is a perpetual string of letting go. One after the other, people leave. We are all born alone. We all die alone. The blurry spectacle in between what we call life is where the illusion of company deceives us. 

You fall in love, you make a friend, you grow attached to someone. You're built by the hands that raise you, the hands that abandon you, the hands that hold you, that tear you up. And in the end, all you have is yourself to fall back on, nothing more. God doesn't care if you're weak, broken, that you can't stand the mere sight of yourself. You are stuck with who you are forever, until your lungs draw their last breath and your eyes catch their final glimpse of light. So it's silly to cling on to people, to temporary masses that will eventually decompose.

And yet, Eren wishes with everything in him that it didn't have to be this way. That he could strap Mikasa to his being, link her heart to his and feel it beating, synchronize its rhythm to his own.

But it doesn't work that way. Life doesn't work that way. Sometimes, the people you choose don't choose you. Sometimes, you gotta drop them off at fancy hotels so they can return to their fiances, so they can go to their beds, not yours. Not you.  _ She doesn't want you. _

“Will you come in with me?” Mikasa asks him when they stand outside the grand doors of Sina Plaza Hotel. “It's intimidating, that place.” Eren stares at her for a moment, unsure of what to say. “It's only to the front desk,” she continues, standing so close that he can smell her breath. Chocolate. She smells like hot chocolate. “I just… I'm afraid that if I walk in there on my own I'll turn right back around and never come back again. I need someone to keep me in check.”

A lazy smirk curves his lips. “I'll keep you in check.”

Mikasa's eyes look up at him, her feet a mere step away from his. “Thank you,” and then she turns around and Eren's gaze stays glued on her, dependent on her, hopelessly clinging to this temporary mass will inevitably decompose.

She holds the door open for him, and he says thanks. He waits for her to catch up before a man with a thick foreign accent approaches them and says hello.

“Mrs. Kirschtein,” he smiles. Mikasa answers to the name.

“Yes.”

“Your coat, madam.”

She slips it off along with her purse and gives the man both items.

“I will store this away,” he tells her, “Mr. Kirschtein happily awaits your return.”

“Thank you,” she says. The man gives a slight bow before leaving.

And Eren is so direly, inexplicably stuck between wanting to scream at the unfairness—the sheer, humiliating unfairness—of how incredible she looks tonight and just straight up calling it quits and never returning to her or this godforsaken place again. But Eren is a masochist. And Eren wants to stay. For a second longer, stay. For a second longer, watch her.

“I have your book,” she turns to him and says, smoothing a hand down her flat tummy. Eren's eyes fucking hurt from how hard they're fighting not to stray to all the places that they want to go but know they shouldn't. “I'm not done with it yet, but I can give it back to you now if you want?”

“Nah,” he says, staring at the chandelier that hangs over their heads so as to not look at her. “Keep it.”

“But…” she starts. Eren gives her a look that makes her bite her lip and nod her head quickly.

“Thank you,” Mikasa leans in close to whisper. Chocolate. Fucking chocolate. Everything about her makes him think of chocolate. “I must say, thanks to you, my Christmas this year has been very interesting.”

“Glad I could help,” he says to her, and he can't help but think about the irony of it all. S ix Christmases ago, she was all his. Six Christmases ago, this day was way more than just _ interesting _ . He'd delved his tongue between her thighs, hooked her legs around his waist and made her come for him—and now all these things are so far out of reach, so forbidden, they cause something in him to darken.

He hopes that, in his place, her fiance makes love to her tonight. Because she deserves it. Because she looks stunning and she always looks stunning and she's the type of girl who deserves to be made love to every single night, to hear how beautiful she is until she believes it.

His cheeks feel warm and a trickle of embarrassment travels down his body. Teeth sink into his bottom lip as if that alone is enough to keep him from his thoughts, but it’s useless. 

In mere seconds, Eren imagines her ebony dress bunched around her hips, the top part undone and draped around her skinny waist and the taste of her soft skin, her legs straddling his lap and her fingers in his hair and her panties pulled to one side so he can—wait, is she even wearing any right now? It doesn't look like it. Shit.

God, he's fucked up.

It's all wrong, but still he finally lets his eyes travel to all those secret places. And he can make out the peaks of her breasts raised under the fabric of her dress, the fleshy mound of side boob peeking out and the glorious slope of her back leading to the supple curve of her ass. God, if only he could be so disgustingly selfish and have her tonight, celebrate this cruel anniversary the same way that it ended. It's a sin, the worst kind of sin to even think it, but Eren's always been a sinner.

So—selfishly—he imagines her in his arms instead, imagines her neck stretching and dense pants falling from her lips and her hips rutting to bring him closer, deeper, and her voice filling his ears as she pours herself into him, holding him tighter with her hair and dress a mess and nothing in her mind but primal, blinding hunger, the burst of color on her chest and cheeks as she throws her head back and cries out and holy shit, Eren's going to hell. He's so sure of it.

But then Mikasa looks at him and smiles, and he feels a dull pang in his heart, and with great sadness he realizes that he's already there.

“ Thank you for walking me,” she says as if he were a good person, as if he weren't just imagining what fucking her would be like. As if he weren't trying not peek down at her legs because then his immediate thoughts would be his hand pushed up between them, her porcelain thighs spreading and the long, drawn out moan she'd always give when his tongue met her core and did her just the way she liked it, slow at first, then faster, until she's an arching, whimpering mess and she starts begging, gripping his hair and breathing her pretty little words, beckoning with her index finger for him to “come here” and kiss her, let their tongues revel in her taste. And fuck, okay, now he can't stop thinking of her that way and she's still smiling and Eren's awfully sexually frustrated for someone who just got laid last night.

“ Are you okay?” she asks him, furrowing a brow.

“ Yep!” He wants to suck your tits and have his tongue inside you but no, yeah, he's great.

“Oh,” she gasps suddenly, and Eren winces from the sound. Ridiculously, he wonders if she's somehow read his mind, discovered all the filth that teems his brain just by looking at him. But the hand that burns him through his clothes when it lands on his forearm is trusting and faint, oblivious to his foul imagination. “Hold on. Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back.”

And then she's off before Eren can even say anything.

With a sigh, his shoulders fall. Before the ache can begin to form, before the blatant hurt of missing her can take root inside him, his eyes latch onto her diminishing frame, watching her leave him to stand alone amidst the grandeur of this large lobby.

How long is it until he's hearing the faint tap, tap, tap of her heels approaching? Who fucking knows, honestly. He's busy counting the petals on a painting of a hydrangea on the wall right next to him when he hears her rising above any other noise.

“Hello.” The word pulls him back to her.

“Hey,” he whispers when she smiles at him, her chest bloating with an inhale and sinking with a sigh.

_ Don't look at her boobs, don't look at her boobs, don't look at her fucking boobs Eren I'm gonna beat the shit out of you. _

Suddenly, a pastry of some sort appears between them, resting in her outstretched hand. It's pink and puffy and it kinda looks like a cookie but it also looks like a macaroon. She's offering it to him.

“What's this?” he queries dumbly.

“It's a cookie,” she answers sweetly. Eren takes it in his hand.

“I… can see that.”

“You let me keep your book, I give you a cookie,” Mikasa reasons, and he kinda wants to punch himself in the face because it's honestly unfair how this woman can transgress from sexy to adorable in a matter of seconds. She will be the death of him. She honestly will.

“Thanks,” he says, even though the thing doesn't look all that tasty. But it was given to him by her. That alone is enough to whet his appetite.

Suddenly, weird, puffed up macaroon cookies are his favorite.

“Merry Christmas,” the girl smiles. Green eyes trace her lips, her nose, the flakes of snow that melt into her hair and dust her ponytail. For the first time in his life, Eren Jaeger envies snowflakes. 

“Merry Christmas, Mikasa,” he replies. She gives him a little grin, and this is the most he's seen her smile in ages. Not that he's complaining, of course. 

If it were up to him, he'd have her smiling forever.

If it were up to him, he'd have her sprawled naked on his bed, because her dress is really pretty but nothing in the world is prettier than bare, vulnerable Mikasa. And the funny thing is, he's not even thinking about doing dirty things to her anymore. Just watching her sleep, watching her chest sway, tracing the little notches of her spine while she dreams and spills her hair and scent all over his pillows… That's good enough. He could spend the rest of his life never touching her as long as he could get a glimpse of that again.

“Are you… walking the whole way back?” she asks him. Eren's begun to make his way back towards the door.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Do you want me to get a cab for you?”

This makes him stall and turn to look at her. She's wringing her hands together, biting the inside of her cheek.

“I'll be fine,” he assures her. Mikasa's eyebrows scrunch together in concern.

“Are you sure? Is it safe to walk like that all on your own?”

“I'll be okay.”

Her eyes flicker over his face for a moment, searching, and Eren wishes he could read her mind, figure out what she's thinking. Her expression is warm, but now suddenly her eyes have fixed themselves on the floor, obscuring her gaze from him.

“Well,” she tells him finally. “Goodbye now.” 

She spins and then his eyes are on her back, admiring the contours of her shoulder blades. And the further she walks, the less he can make them out. She’s fading away.

“Wait,” Eren breathes before he can catch the word between his teeth, letting it slip out in a breath she somehow hears despite it being very quiet.

She stops.

“Yes?” Mikasa turns slightly to look at him, the light of the chandelier spilling down her frame. Her body is a painting, the culmination of lines and shapes that can dumbfound any artist.

_ Please don't go, _ his heart now begs, grousing in the misery of living without her.  _ Please. Stay with me. I want you. I need you. I don't even care that you don't want me back just please, please, please stay with me. _

Her eyes are calm and eternal, those two pools of ink that have always held the world.

And in the air, there’s a promise:

_ Always, Eren. I will always be with you. _

Then, slowly, the gloomy veil of despondence lifts from his eyes, revealing the light of a new hope.

“I'll… see you New Year's eve then?” 

Mikasa smiles at the floor, smoothing that unruly lock of hair behind her ear again. Her hand looks so gentle. And her shoulders. And her knees. And what would it be like to kiss every fingertip, every eyelash, every point of her hips, and arms, and back? “Yes, of course,” she whispers, the same tone she’d used all those years ago to promise that she loved him. (And would her mouth still taste the same without the words “I love you” in it?)

“Okay, great,” Eren nods, heat rising to his face. He doesn't care that he's blushing, or that his hands shake and sweat, or that she makes him weak and the knees and lightheaded.

He's happy.

He's happy because there's the promise of seeing her again.

“See you later, Eren,” the girl waves.

“See ya,” he waves back, and this time, it's him who walks away and leaves her staring.

He doesn't see how she stands, clinging to his dwindling presence. She doesn’t move, or breathe, or think until there’s no more of him to see, no more of him to experience. With every breath from her lungs, there's an echo:

Always.

Always.

Always.

_ I will always be with you.  _

And the gasps that fill her chest somehow reach him. He feels them, feels her air. He breathes. He knows. Her promise is a breeze. It carries them. 

Walking, Eren glances at the pastry in his hand. He thinks of his mother, who baked the most delicious cookies in the world. He bites into it, and it's not nearly as good as hers, not even close, but it serves its consolation. Two more bites later and the thing's nearly gone. He's always eaten too fast; Ma used to get on his case for it. He misses her. He wishes she was here. If his mother knew all the perverted things he had been thinking tonight, she'd whack his bum. Hard. Give him a bruise even bigger than a papaya.

Eren smirks, imagining two big golden eyes peering down at him from the heavens.  _ I've raised you better than that, _ she'd say, then pull his ear or something. And he'd laugh, like he is right now. Because it's true. She really did raise him better.

If only he could call her up and tell her everything that happened tonight, recount the story he wants so desperately to share. He hopes now, more than ever, that there truly is a place called Heaven up above. His mother would surely be there.

“Mom, can you believe that?” Eren grunts, a nonbeliever talking to the angel he hopes is somewhere in the clouds. “I still love her. How sad is that? I'm scared to shit but at the same time, you always taught me to fight for what I want. And I want her.” He sighs at the loneliness that surrounds him, with not a soul present in the streets. “I wish you were here, Ma. You'd know exactly what to tell me.”

Snowflakes gather on the fibers of his coat, on the surface on his lips, tickling the skin of his nose and latching onto the preens of his eyelashes. Somehow, just somehow, Eren knows she's listening, smiling down at him right now.

He smiles back.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: Remember the “grandpa bench” from last chapter? That’s the bench that Eren and Mikasa call “our bench” here. More on that later.


	12. Lessons on How to Save a Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it guys. After this chapter, it’s one more childhood chapter and then we’re on to their teenage years. For those of you that are aware of the rough patch I’ve been going through and have shown your support, thank you. I didn’t give up on writing these past few weeks because of you. Huggies and kissies to you all.

**** “Ow, ow, ow! Mikasa, that’s my ear!”

“I know it’s your ear, you poopie.”

“Ow! Mikasa!”

“Don’t you ‘Mikasa’ me.”

“I’m sorry! Whatever I did, I’m sorry!”

“Armin Arlert.” The boy flinched at her tone. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t!” he squeaked, blue eyes fretful. “I just never mentioned it, that’s all!”

“I nearly died of a heart attack today!” Mikasa exclaimed, relinquishing her hold on his ear. “Eren’s my neighbor. My  _ neighbor! _ How could you go so long without telling me?”

“I just thought… I just…”

“Now Mama wants me to take the bus everyday to keep him company. Every day! Every morning with Eren! Armin, how could you?”

“Both of you need friends!” he cried, rubbing his ear. It still stung. “And what better way to get you two to talk to each other?”

“Maybe a  _ normal _ way?” Mikasa proclaimed, stomping her foot, pacing. “One that isn’t a  _ scheme _ ?”

Armin shook his head. “Negative. It wouldn’t have worked. You’re both too stubborn.”

“Too stubborn?”

“Hasn’t he been making you lunches? And you guys did, what, pass notes? It’s not enough!”

“Armin.”

“What?”

“You could’ve just been honest.”

“No. You would’ve avoided ever going near his house if you knew. Too shy, too shy.”

“Armin.”

“What?”

“Why do you want us to be friends so bad?”

“You’re both lonely.”

“I’m not lonely, I’m nine!”

“Well, he is. He needs a good friend.”

“He has you.”

“Not enough. His mom is sick, Mikasa. She’s dying.”

Silence.

“She’s… dying?”

“I… I feel so bad for him. He has friends, yeah, but they’re not special. He needs special friends. Like you and me.”

“But…”

“Please, Mikasa. I love Eren, but sometimes, I worry that he goes too long without anyone to keep him safe.”

“Safe?”

“Yes. He’s dangerous. His heart’s too big, so he hurts a lot, loves a lot. Everything is a lot, too much! He needs saving sometimes, people to keep him safe.”

“And you think I can _ save _ him?”

“You can try.”

“I’m no hero! I’m just a girl!”

“You can be a friend. It’s the same thing, Mikasa.”

“I don’t know how to be a friend.”

And then he grinned. “I’ll teach you!”

**—o—**

Lesson Number One: 

One does not, and this means  _ never _ , ignore thy neighbor when waiting at thy bus stop.

 

And she wanted to. Boy, did Mikasa want to pretend that Eren didn’t appear every. Single. Morning. 

Armin was right. She’s too shy, too shy. Her heart was up to her eyeballs by the time she made it to the bus stop. 

Eren was already there, of course, with his butt planted on that rickety, old grandpa bench. 

The grand willow tree behind him hunched over the quiet spot where he sat, its leaves swaying subtly in the cool autumn wind. He looked as if he belonged to another plane of existence. It was only when Mikasa drew closer, as leaves crumpled underfoot, and she found herself under the shade of this massive tree that she joined him, and this little sliver of the planet became her world.

Her keen ears caught every hiss of the leaves, every breath from him and her and Mama, whom greeted him as soon as she saw him, and even though his mouth was full with what looked like his breakfast, Eren nodded and spoke through a mouth full of dry Lucky Charms.

“Good mornin’,” he said, still chewing. “Morning, Mikasa.”

She opened her mouth. A draft came out. Cold and sharp. Voiceless.

_ Poop on a stick.  _ Why did Armin always have to be right? She had the social skills of a carrot.

“Mikasa,” Mama voiced softly, patting her back. “Why don’t you go sit with Eren while I go call your father?”

Well, hmm, lovely question. Why don’t pigs rain from the sky? Why don’t people have three eyes? Why do farts make bubbles underwater? It’s just the way things go! 

“Go on.” She dug a hand into her bra, pulled out her flip phone. “Go.”

“But, Mama, I’m scared,” the girl hissed, her back to Eren.

“Scared?” her mother scoffed. “Nonsense. He’s just a boy.”

“But…”

Mama’s attention shifted to her phone. She punched in numbers on the keypad, buttons beeping with each digit she pressed. Mikasa’s eye twitched when she brought the phone up to her ear and mouthed,  _ Go. _

Crud nuggets.

Begrudgingly, the girl lifted one foot after the other and traipsed over to the boy. Without a word, she hopped onto the bench and sat beside him, self-conscious of what her appearance might be. She’d brushed her teeth, combed her hair, even stolen some of her mother’s perfume to smell good that day. But what if she looked bad? What if she had something stuck on her tooth? She ate pancakes that morning **—** what if Eren didn’t like pancakes and he smelled them in her breath?

She bit her lip, staring down at her small feet. They couldn’t reach the ground, so they dangled in the air below her. Mama was whispering a few feet away, arguing with Papa in a hushed tone. Mikasa sighed, for she could always tell when they were arguing, because her mother’s shoulders would take on a hunch they didn’t naturally possess, and her voice would become more intimidating than what it already was. Which, let me tell you, was darnright  _ scary _ .

Mikasa loathed it when her parents argued. What did they even have to fight about now?

“You okay?” Eren asked her, his voice making her jump.

“Y-yes.”

“Are you sick?” His voice was a whisper, his eyes the color of leaves.

“I’m not sick,” she breathed, realizing that this was the first time she ever spoke to him directly since the day they met. Her heart was restless, pumping blood so fast it made her dizzy. She cleared her throat, afraid that the boy beside her might hear the shrill screams her heartbeats emitted.  _ Don’t embarrass yourself,  _ it said. _ Be cool, Mikasa. Be cool. _

Eren raised his brows at her. She held her breath. 

“You look sad,” he said. His hair was a mess. Now that he was so close to her, she could she aspects of him she’d never seen before. His eyes were brighter, his smile bigger, his dimple flashier and bolder than she ever imagined. “Usually, people are sad when they’re sick.”

“No. I’m not sick.”

“Huh,” and then he popped more Lucky Charms into his mouth. 

Mikasa watched him pluck out all the wheat bits from the cereal, so that all that was left was the colorful little marshmallows. She gaped in horror as he brought a handful into his mouth. That was pure sugar he was eating! Pure sugar! 

“Why do you throw those out?” she queried, wrinkling her nose. 

“What, the cereal bits?”

“Mhm.”

“I don’t like them. I only like the marshmallows.”

“The wheat bits are my favorite,” she confessed.

Blasphemy. 

“What!?!?!?!”

“Yep.”

Mama was still arguing with Papa. Her hisses were carried off by the early morning breeze, so that they never reached the bench. It really was as if that tree secluded them for the rest of existence. In their own separate little world, Mikasa was content. 

“Do you want them?” Eren offered her his hand. Lucky Charms covered his palm, all the wheat bits he was about to throw out smiling at her.

“Sure.” She cradled her hands together and held them out. Eren dropped the cereal onto her palms, scoffing in disbelief when she popped it into her mouth and chewed discreetly.

“What kind of person likes the wheat bits?” he asked himself. 

Mikasa smiled. “Me.”

And he smiled too.

Even the sky bore witness to their meeting that day, the start of something new. It was how soulmates were made. With thread and hope and little clumps of cereal, two spirits coexisted and merged into one. A funny thing that, destiny.

**—o—**

Winter came, slowly. 

Golden, fiery leaves rained down like autumn snow. The wind carried them in hordes, sweeping the soiled ground they laid on. Temperatures dropped, branches shed their clothing, sunsets burned with the last few rays of light. The planet took a deep, long breath. As it inhaled, nature stripped its warmth, bracing itself for the icy exhale that bathed the world in white. It was a cruel, harsh sigh, but it was borne with hope, patience. Once a year, nature agreed to die so that with the coming Spring it could resuscitate. And as it was with the world, it was so with Eren Jaeger.

His bright, summer eyes dimmed. His sunny, resplendent smile waned. The colorful bursts of his soul became as crisp and pale as the snow that piled up around them. Something in him changed. He was like the seasons, as vehement as the shifts of life itself.

The grandpa bench, you see, became their little haven.

Every morning, Mikasa would trot over to the bus stop with her mother, then plop onto the spot Eren always reserved for her at his side (not that there was anyone that could possibly claim it, but he still saved it just for her). It was then that Mikasa would occupy herself with trying to decipher what season Eren was that day.

Sometimes, he was Spring.

Sometimes, he was Summer.

Sometimes, he was Fall.

Sometimes, he was cold, cold Winter.

And when he was distant, frigid, Mikasa had great difficulty understanding why.

Soon, she discovered that it was partly because of his parents. “Mom sleeps a lot,” he’d told her one morning. “And Dad’s almost never home. He’s a doctor. Doctors are never home.” When his mother slept the most, when his father was the most absent, when his dimple didn’t flash as much and his eyes barely rose to meet hers, Mikasa knew: it was snow that settled in his heart. Snow. 

To see Eren upset is to witness something very daunting. Fire isn’t supposed to freeze, flames aren’t meant to cool and relinquish their heat like that. They’re made to thaw, to offer warmth, to give off light. And that was Eren. But he did, at times, stop burning. And when he did, Mikasa cursed the defied laws of nature, for she hated it so much.

It was one day after school, when Papa was at work and Mama was still out running errands, that Eren flung a snowball at her face and bruised her cheek.

“Ow!” she screamed. Their school bus screeched and sputtered away. It was just them, and the bench, and the snow, and the white weeping willow tree that heard the young girl’s cry. 

“Oh!” Eren gasped upon realizing that he’d hurt her, gloved hands flying to his mouth. “I’m sorry!” 

Mikasa rubbed her cheek, glaring at him.

 

Lesson Number Two:

One does not, and this means  _ never _ , decline a snowball fight.

 

“Prepare to die.”

“Uh oh.”

“This means war.”

“No!”

“Come here, you big meanie!”

“I’m! Not! Mean!” Eren grunted, hurling clumps of snow at Mikasa and deflecting the neat little balls she threw at him.

They screamed and ran around to throw snow at one another. Eren was good at dodging most of her attacks.  _ Most  _ of them. When Mikasa landed a solid one on his head, she squealed with manic laughter.

“Hey!” He shook his head violently, snow flying off his hair. “Not funny!” 

“Yes!”

“No!”

_ “Yes!!!!!!” _

“Oof!” he grunted, flinging another snowball. “Take that!”

“Oh yeah?” Mikasa gathered the biggest pile of snow she could manage. It dispersed in the air, barely reaching him. “Aw, poop!”

“Ha!”

“I quit!”

“Loser!”

Another flurry of white came flying her way. She went to run the other direction, when suddenly her foot slipped on ice and she toppled backwards and onto her back.

Eren’s gasp was loud.

“Mikasa!”

She was crying. 

“Mikasa, are you okay?!”

Her hands hid her face, sobs poured into her gloves. 

Eren’s heart catapulted up to his throat. He could throw it up he was so scared.

“Hold on, I'm coming!”

His feet tore through the snow. He threw himself beside her, tentative fingers grasping her hand.

“Mikasa,” he panted, his cheeks red. “Mikasa, what hurts?”

No response. She was wailing now.

“Mikasa, talk to me! Please!”

“Mrohbrughbleghup.”

“What?!”

“Mehuprmhmph.”

“I can’t **—** I don’t understand!”

Suddenly, the world spun. 

“Gotcha!”

Eren found himself on his back, blinking up at a grinning, perfectly fine Mikasa. 

“I win!” she triumphed, slapping a handful of snow on his head. “Who’s the loser now?”

Eren wiggled beneath her, groaning at the chill that caked his skull. She sat on his belly, which made him grunt. “Heavy,” he grimaced. “Dying…. can’t…. breathe… need…  _ air _ …”

“I’m not that heavy,” she frowned. He went to move his arms, but they were pinned down to the ground on either side of him. Her nails dug into his bare wrists, her breaths puffing out in small clouds that made her chest stutter. Her cheeks and nose were rosy, skin so pale it made the flush stand out like highlighter streaks on paper. There was so much white around them. Even her eyes abandoned a sliver of their dark, dark tone. They were silver, not black. Shiny, perfect silver.

Then it hit him.

Holy sh*t. Mikasa Ackerman was touching him. On top of him. A girl!

Abort! Abort!

_ Abort mission! _

“Get off,” Eren huffed weakly. He felt his cheeks tingle with heat, which puzzled him. Girls were gross, they had cooties. But somehow, Eren didn’t mind Mikasa’s cooties at all.

“Mikasa,” he wheezed. She blinked at him. There were snowflakes in her hair.

“What?”

“Your eyelashes. You got snow on your eyelashes.”

“So do you.”

“Get off.”

“No.”

“What, are you gonna kiss me?”

“Ew, no!”

“Then get off me!”

“But **—** ”

“I’ll kiss you if you don’t get off me!”

“Fine!”

She rolled onto the ground beside him. but only after punching him on the arm.

“Ow.” It hurt like heck, but Mom always told him that boys are supposed to protect girls, not hit them. So Eren let himself stay hit that time. He made it an exception, though. Only Mikasa could punch him without getting a punch back.

He heard her giggle into the air, her laughter beating on his eardrums. They both had snow pressed to their skins and clothing, their school bags flung to some abandoned corner by the bus stop. Because they lived in the buttcrack of nowhere, cars never passed by. There was no sound save for the cool hush of the wind, and the warm torrents of their breathing.

Mikasa turned her head to peer at him, splitting her lips to say something, air slipping in between them to swell her throat. But that same breath lodged itself there. His eyes were closed. He was frowning, like a child who sees nightmares at the backs of his eyelids.

She blinked, studying him. His lips were chapped. She thought of what he’d threatened her with earlier, how hasty she’d been to refuse. Surely, he didn’t really mean it. Eren wasn’t the type to just grab a girl and kiss them. He could hardly walk in a straight line, let alone kiss someone!

In the privacy of her own mind, she wondered what his lips might feel like. If they kissed like grown ups, would it be soft? Would it feel sticky? Would she get slobber on her chin? Would fireworks pop between them the way they do in movies? Would he taste sweet? Bad? Like porridge? Like chocolate ice cream with whipped cream on top?

But wait! Don’t babies come from kisses too!?!?

Mikasa shook her head. She was far too young to be anyone’s mother but Nyngio’s. 

“Get up, silly,” she told him, rising to her feet. He cracked an eye open to look at her. She scoffed. “Our moms are going to kill us.”

“Why?” he queried, still on the ground.

“Because! We’re covered from head to toe in snow.”

“So?”

“What do you think snow does in heat, Eren?”

“Uh…” he scrunched his eyes, thinking. “Melt?”

“Exactly. And what happens when it melts?”

“It becomes water.”

“And what does water do to clothes?”

“Burn it!”

_ “Eren.” _

“Ugh, Mikasa, it’s no big deal. My mom won’t care.” Groaning, he brought himself to his feet and eyed her bruise. “Sorry about your cheek,” he murmured, ashamed of himself.

“It’s okay,” Mikasa shrugged. She went to turn around, to get her schoolbag and his, but his fingers curled around her hand in a flash, stopping her.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he said.

And then green eyes closed.

And snow-dusted lips puckered.

And they drew closer inch, by inch, by inch.

And Mikasa could taste the chocolate, the sweetness, the childish excitement on his lips as if they already connected to hers when suddenly **—**

“Wanna eat some spaghetti?!”

Mikasa’s features fell. “Some what?”

“Spaghetti!” Eren grinned, sniffling. “Ma makes the best spaghetti in the history of ever. Your mom’s not home yet, right?”

“Uh.” Her eyes fell to their hands. Still joined. “Right.”

“Then come over! You can meet my mom.”

“Your mama?”

“My  _ mom _ , yes. Wanna meet her?”

A ruddy lip clenched between her teeth. “I can’t, Eren. I have ballet in an hour. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Can’t,” he sighed, letting go of her hand. “I've got soccer practice. How about Wednesday?”

“Ballet. Thursday?”

“Doctor’s appointment. Friday?”

“Dance recital.”

“Shit.”

“Turd nuggets.”

They trekked to their schoolbags in a solemn, solemn march: chins down, gazes low, shoulders slumped, bodies laden with sadness.

“This sucks,” Eren whined. 

Mikasa hummed in agreement. 

When they both had their bags on their backs, when they both swept off the snow that clung to their coats and legs, when the time to go their separate ways came and neither of them wanted to, Eren said, “We’ll figure it out. Mom’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

And Mikasa felt her heart crack.

“I… I should go,” she told him, thinking of her own mother. Who was healthy. Who was alive. Whom Armin never had to refer to as someone who is _ sick Mikasa. She’s dying. _ “Mama will be home any minute, you know.”

“Okay,” the boy said, lingering. There was a level of reluctance in him, a procrastinating aura that neglected going home.

“Goodbye, Eren.”

“Bye.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See ya!”

They split, Eren going east, Mikasa going west, her eyes up north with her hair flowing south and her heart, somehow, swirling right in the middle, like the needle of a compass that spun, and spun, and spun, and never landed. 

**—o—**

Kisses don’t taste like chocolate. Mikasa knew for a fact, because when she pecked her own mother on the lips, or her father, their chaste goodnights would taste like either absolutely nothing, or Mama’s chapstick. That’s it. No chocolate, no sweetness. Just good ol’ nothingness and Carmex.

How does kissing even work? You pucker up and boom, bam, done. That’s how her dolls kissed. She’d bring their plastic, empty heads together, tilt them slighting to the side, and three mississippi’s later it was over. She’d giggle, the rebel. Kissing was for adults, and her dolls weren’t adults; Ningyo was only a year older than her, but at times like that, she’d let herself dream. What if?  _ What if? _ What if kisses  _ did _ taste like sugar and cocoa? What if they  _ did  _ last three whole mississippi's of pure gold? What if a simple smooch was enough to make her weak at the knees, make her heart grow wings and flutter?

One night after showering, a determined Mikasa decided to “practice”. She wiped the fog off her mirror so that she could see herself. With her hair plastered to her cheeks and neck, she eyed the drops of water that rolled down her pasty skin, puckered her pinkened lips and leaned forward.

Forward.

Forward.

Until she felt the cold, smooth surface on her lips.

_ One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi. _

Done. She leaned back and observed the print her kiss left on the glass, the two foggy blotches her nostrils breathed against it. She wrinkled her nose, and made a mental note to never breathe next time she kissed someone. She could go three seconds without breathing. Yeah.

But wait.

What about those weird, long kisses? The gross ones that she sometimes saw on her parents’ TV that made her face twist in all kinds of horrific expressions? How do those people go so long without breathing and not pass out?!

Never mind, scratch that. Mikasa would _ never _ kiss anyone again. Not Mama. Maybe not Papa. Most certainly not anybody else. It was final.

But she couldn’t stop staring at Eren’s mouth; how it moved, the easy way it slipped into smiles, frowns, seldom ever silence. On the days he  _ was _ silent though, his mouth would not move at all, except to form straight, taut lines that looked as if somebody had zipped his lips together and secured them with a lock.

Would a kiss be the key that would free them?

Mikasa mentally slapped herself for that thought.

 

Lesson Number Three:

One does not, and this means  _ never _ , think about kissing thy friend.

 

It was one of those days, when his lips were sealed, that he suddenly unzipped and moved them to ask, “Do you have ballet today, Mikasa?”

She blinked at him, swaying slightly when their bus ran over a bump. “No, why?”

“Can you come over?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to be alone today.”

“Isn’t your mama home?” 

“I’m always alone,” he breathed, staring down at his hands. Mikasa had to remind herself that loneliness wasn’t a good thing to most people, the way it was for her.

“Not always,” she whispered kindly. “You have me. We’re neighbors!”

“Then be a neighbor today and come over!” The words exploded out of his mouth, surprising her. “Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

“I would have to ask for permission first.”

“From who? Your mom?”

“She’s strict.”

This didn’t faze him in the slightest. 

“Ask her! Here.” His cell phone went flying her way. “Call!”

And so she did. She punched in the numbers. Waited. Waited.

_ “Hello?” _

“Mama.”

Quickly, Eren pressed his ear to the back of the phone to listen. His close proximity made Mikasa stiffen, made words tangle in her mouth.

_ “Mikasa?”  _ Mama took her silence as reason to be alarmed.  _ “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” _

“I’m fine. Um, I have a question.”

_ “What is it, honey?” _

“Can I come over Eren’s house today?”

A pause. 

_ “To do what?” _

_ Homework _ , he mouthed.

“Homework,” Mikasa repeated.

_ “He’s a boy, Mikasa,”  _ sighed Mama. Mikasa felt heat rise to her cheeks.

“He’s my friend. Armin’s a boy too.”

_ “Yes, but I know Armin.” _

“You know Eren.”

_ “Mikasa.” _

“Sorry.”

Mama’s sigh was labored.

Eren’s shoulder met Mikasa’s, his hair tickling the side of her face, the bitter taste of rejection garnishing the already sour silence that was shared between them.  

_ “Alright, fine.”  _ Mama capitulated suddenly.  _ “You can go.” _

Both kids gasped. 

_ “You have two hours. I will pick you up, okay?” _

“Yes! Thank you, Mama!”

_ “Alright.” _

Mikasa squealed, “She said yes!”

Eren did too. “Yay!”

Had Armin been there, he would’ve been ecstatic. He also would’ve noticed her copious lip-gawking. And she would’ve begged him not to tell, would’ve asked him  _ pretty please with a cherry on top? _

**—o—**

Eren’s house was **—** in every way **—** the total and complete opposite of Mikasa’s.

Hers had a garden and his had trees. Hers was bright with colors and his was dull with age. Hers was two stories high and his was only one plus an attic. Hers was upkept like a doll house and his resembled the unkempt antiquity of a cabin. But no house was better than the other. They were both equally a home, both equally a sanctuary, except opposites in appearance and age. Mikasa could never imagine growing up in his home; Eren would probably feel the same way about hers.

And so they entered through the garage: a large wall that slithered upwards like an electronic snake, whose loud humming only ceased once it adhered to the ceiling. Inside, there was a truck, looking old and rusty and abandoned. “It’s my mother’s,” Eren explained as the garage door grumbled shut. It was then that it occurred to Mikasa that the last time his mother may have driven could’ve been **—** by the looks of it **—** years and years ago. 

They snuck their way inside, small feet shuffling quietly on the carpet. In Mikasa’s home, one had to always take off their shoes before entering, but Eren’s home ran by different laws. The stained floors confessed it. With shoes full of snow, he pottered right in, leaving a trail of melting white behind him.

His house was even bigger on the inside. It was warm. Not just in ambience and temperature, but the colors of the furniture, lights, walls, all possessed their own unique calidity. The sunlight hardly crept in through the curtained windows, so Eren had to flick on a light. Every light he revived on his way to his bedroom was dim. It was as if the entire place were afraid of being too loud. Everything was quiet. The lights. The air. The warmth. Even Eren.

“This is my room,” he whispered, opening a door. “You can leave your stuff here.”

“Okay.” It seemed that even voices were dim in here.

“Sorry about the mess.” And boy, was there a mess indeed. His room was even messier than his hair!

“That’s alright,” Mikasa muttered, stepping over a sea of scattered legos. What looked like a half-finished spaceship of some sort laid abandoned nearby. Drawings of cars, buildings, and even more spaceships hung on his walls, drawn by him, it seems. A guitar rested on his unmade bed. Worn clothes and toys littered every other space that could’ve potentially looked clean, but weren’t allowed to. A dirty soccer uniform was kicked out of view by an embarrassed Eren, who sniffled and cleared his throat.

“My father’s not home,” he explained, as if his absence wasn’t obvious enough.

“Mine hardly ever is either,” Mikasa said, much too familiar with the cons of having a workaholic parent.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not you fault.”

And with that, their backpacks and coats were chucked to some random corner, just like the rest of Eren’s things. 

“Come on,” the boy said then, his eyes shining. “I want you to meet my mom.”

Mikasa nodded, gulping down the pounding in throat. Her heart landed with a thud, leaving an unpleasant taste where it’d hammered away at the back of her tongue.

Their footsteps were bated breaths that fused with the silence. Down a long hallway, to the right, was a forlorn door. They stopped there, and Eren’s hand paused just centimeters away from the doorknob. That was when he turned to look at Mikasa and whispered, “Please don’t be scared.”

“I’m not scared,” she lied.

Eren’s lips moved to say more, but they hid in his mouth. With an inhale that puffed out his chest, he clasped the doorknob, turned it, pushed.

Slowly, the door creaked open.

Just a sliver.

A thin line.

Enough for Eren’s voice to slip inside. 

“Mom?” No answer. “Mommy?” The sliver grew, and grew, and grew. And soon, Mikasa’s features were freezing, one by one, at the sight before them.

Machines. The likes of which she’d only seen in movies, or imagined in her mind, all beeped and connected to the frail, thin woman who hardly filled the bed she laid on. All the lunches that were made for her, the flower crown that got destroyed, her first suspension, the boy that stood beside her and motioned for her to come in, were all linked to this fragile human being, this thin thread of life. Mikasa could hardly believe it. Eren’s mother felt so grand, but looked so small, so finite.

“Mommy,” he whispered, his lips on his mother’s ear. “Mom, wake up.”

A long inhale filled the woman’s nose. Mikasa held her breath, afraid that her own air might be polluted and sicken her further.

“Mom.” Eren smiled, with a gentleness Mikasa had never seen him use before. “Mom, guess what.”

“What?” It was a cracked, quiet noise. The remnant of a voice that once trilled loudly.

“I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Eyebrows the color of Eren’s hair furrowed. “Uh oh.”

“No, no,  it’s good. Trust me. Mikasa’s here.”

“Mikasa?”

“Look.”

That was when she opened her eyes.

Gold. Like the flecks of light that dusted Eren’s irises.

“Mikasa,” she smiled as her son pushed her hair behind her ear. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”

“Yes,” the girl said, her heart back up in her throat. “It’s nice to meet you too.” 

“I’m Carla.”

“Hello, Carla.”

“Eren’s told me lots about you.”

_ “Mom,” _ the boy hissed, eyeing her sternly.

“Well, I’m not lying.”

“Shhh.”

Her drowsy croaks transformed into breaths: “She’s pretty.”

“Stop, Ma!”

“No wonder Armin says you got a thingy thing for **—** ”

“No!” He covered her eyes with his hand. “Okay, time to go back to sleep. Goodnight, Mother.”

“Hold up,” Carla giggled, a healthy, happy sound. “I’m only joking.”

Her son grumbled something under his breath. She removed his hand from her face, brought herself up to a sitting position, wincing.

“Candy?” Eren asked her.

Her smile was faint. “Please.”

He scurried to a nearby drawer, pulling out a lollipop that looked nothing like regular candy at all.

“I would offer you one,” Carla told Mikasa. “But they’re pretty nasty.”

“That’s alright,” she said, her eyes glued on the sheet that fell from her shoulders.

Carla’s bones were like blades. They pressed out under her skin, sharp points just a jab away from bursting through the surface. It seemed that all of her insides were made of knives; wincing features told her so. Veiny hands shook as she unwrapped the lollipop and popped it into her mouth, the hardened shell clinking against her teeth. And she was thin. Thinner than Mama. Her hair, a brunette mess, was pulled in a ponytail that hung loosely to one side as a consequence of her napping.

_ Please don’t be scared, _ Eren had told her.

But Mikasa quickly realized that there was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

Sometimes, God put big souls inside bodies that were far too small to carry them. And that was Eren’s mom. She had dimples when she smiled, and eyes that shone very bright and were so pure no sickness could touch them. She was ill, and frail, and grimaced as she sucked on her morphine lollipop, but it was so clear to see where Eren got his zest for life and altruism from. Perhaps his father was the quiet one of the family, because Carla was as loud, as funny, and as outspoken as her son. Her eyes crinkled when she laughed, just like Eren’s do. She was hot-headed and smart and sassy, and when she stood up to get herself a glass of water, the way she swatted her objecting son away showed how stubborn she was too. As she walked, her nightgown barely hanging to her skin, Mikasa saw that she had a small tattoo on her upper back, a sun with flames rooting out of it, and a tattoo of a rose on her ankle. Suddenly, the truck, the drawings, the guitar, they all made sense. She was a big, big soul, crammed into the constricted spaces of a fragile body. And her son, who was just as fervent, seemed to carry the parts of her spirit that her sickness wouldn’t allow within himself.

“I haven’t always looked like this,” she told Mikasa after a while of conversing, as the glass of water shook  its way up to her lips.

“Neither have I,” the child said. “I just grew one more inch this past month. And my hair’s gotten longer. Mama wants to cut it, but I keep telling her not to.”

Carla’s eyes were tender. “Do you like having long hair?”

“Mhm.”

“Me too. And this one,” she ruffled Eren’s hair, messing it further. “Is a pain when it comes to getting haircuts.”

“I hate them,” he concurred. “I have to sit still so long and my butt gets numb.”

“And your ears get itchy.”

“Because of the little hairs that stick to my skin! Gross!”

“But that didn’t stop him from cutting off his own hair when he was four.”

“I was hot!”

“I still can’t believe your father let you play with those scissors.” 

“I cut my own hair once too,” confessed Mikasa. “My mother cried.”

To her surprise, Carla laughed. “You’re very smart, Mikasa. Do you like to read?”

“At times,” the girl murmured, blushing at her compliment. “But not as much as Armin.”

“Nobody likes to read as much as that mushroom head,” Eren scoffed. His mother flicked his earlobe.

“You’ve got some nerve calling him mushroom head **—** ”

“ **—** It’s out of love! **—** ”

“ **—** when your own hair is an atrocity, mister.”

He went to stick his tongue out at her, but Carla had already predicted that he would. She took his nose between her fingers and pinched hard. 

“Ow!” Eren’s cry was nasally. “Mommy, stop!”

She didn’t. She just kissed him hard on the side of the head.

“Mommy!”

Mikasa found herself biting back a laugh.

“What do you say we make some spaghetti tonight?” was Carla’s sudden proposal, letting go of Eren’s nose. “I’m feeling up to it today.”

“Whoo!” her son shouted, throwing himself back on her bed. The mattress swayed and complained under his bouncing body, causing her to spill some water on herself.

She sighed, but then her gaze was on Mikasa and her voice was welcoming. Content.

“Mikasa, would you like to eat with us?”

 

Lesson Number Four:

One does not, and this means  _ never _ , willingly refuse thy friend’s Mama. Or spaghetti.

 

And thus:

“Yes!”

**—o—**

Friendship blooms much in the way that flowers do. Through the piles of snow, the chilly air, the scarce sunlight, Eren and Mikasa formed a bond that flourished so effortlessly, nothing could wither it **—** not even ice. 

They understood one another. Seldom did Mikasa need to speak for Eren to understand what she was saying, and never did Eren need to explain himself, or even apologize, when it came to her. They were so different, and yet entirely alike. The sun and the moon, eclipsed each time they met. Nature had a funny way of defying its own laws, of stringing the impossible together.

Armin was happy, healthy.

Mikasa sat with them at lunch now, even though she sometimes missed the sweet librarian that had smiled at her every day that she got bullied. But as the world changed, so did Mikasa’s life. She had friends now. Two. Two whole live, breathing friends. It was awesome.

She met Eren’s father on a day when the clouds were crying. Rain pattered on the roof and Grisha Jaeger, as he introduced himself, came home early from work. Carla felt well enough to cook. Grisha was kind, ruffled Eren’s hair, shook Mikasa’s hand, kissed his wife on the forehead. It was a good day. Mikasa skipped home that afternoon, splashing her rain boots on shallow puddles, singing about the little joys of life.

The life of a child is filled with tremendous, little pleasures. When Mikasa thought about eating chocolate or dinner at the Jaegers’, or spending lunchtime with her chatty friends, her heart would flitter with the excitement of something good to come. The whole world was bright and happy because chocolate, Armin, Eren, and his family existed. A very young and frivolous Mikasa was direly content.

But youth is filled with small, overwhelming tragedies too.

Everything bad feels like the absolute end of the world. So one day, when Eren had tomato sauce on his cheek, and Mikasa snorted into her napkin, and a loud crash suddenly made them jump, a horrified Carla gaped at the shattered dishes in the kitchen sink, the hands that had cramped and locked and failed her. Tears formed in her eyes. Mikasa saw them, and the spaghetti in her stomach hurt, the happy whistling of her heart ceased as if the sky itself were falling, as if the ground had suddenly given out.

“Mom?”

“I’m sorry. I think I need to go lay down.”

And with that, she vanished.

Death was such an incredible concept to understand. Mikasa was smart enough to know that it was inevitable, a natural part of life, that eventually all things must return to the place they come from. All life is burrowed. Our bodies are burrowed. Our souls and hopes and dreams, all borrowed. And one day they must return to God. But it was the cruel unfairness that comes with souls returning home that she simply could not fathom.

Why did Kami allow good people to be sick?

Armin?

Carla?

_ Why? _

“Mikasa,” Carla said one afternoon as they did Eren’s laundry. “This is your home, you understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered, folding a jacket into a neat little square. “I understand.”

“So if you ever need anything, you are more than welcome to come here. My home is your home.”

“ _ Mi casa es su casa, _ Mikasa. Ha-ha! That’s funny!”

“Very clever, son.”

“Thanks, I know.”

A sudden wave of anxiety washed over the small girl. The clock was ticking. In retrospect, all beings are dying; even Mama, even Papa, even Eren **—** the epitome of life itself. But his mom was  _ dying _ dying. She was disappearing right before their eyes. Mikasa feared that one day, she would wake up and Carla would simply be gone. Her tattoos, her smiles, her spaghetti dinners and afternoons spent folding clothes, all gone.

_ Kami, _ she breathed in her being. _ I’m not ready. I’m not ready to say goodbye.  _ She was too young. Eren was too young. The world was too young to lose Carla Jaeger.

If only she could will people into health. If only Mikasa could love Carla so, so much that she cured her. But one cannot love another’s illnesses away. You can only love them. Ill. Living. Dying. Just love them.

“Can I bring my parents over this weekend?” she asked. “I would like for them to meet you.”

Her friend, the woman who brought Eren into the world, the one with sunlight in her eyes, she said: “Of course, sweetie.”

And Mikasa took more time from God. She snatched the clock from Kami’s great, big hands and demanded more minutes, more seconds, more breaths.  _ You’re not taking her yet, _ she seethed. Not yet. Not yet.

**—o—**

“I have the butt of a damn rhinorocerorous!”

“I think you mean rhinoceros, honey.”

“To slag with this dress! And to slag with you!”

“I think you mean to **—** ”

“I know what I mean, you slimy…” the rest was in angry Japanese. 

Papa turned to Mikasa, shooting her a wink.

In her pink dress, she smiled.

“That’s it!” Mama declared, throwing her hands up and storming off to her closet. “I’m not going!”

Papa smirked, looping his tie into yet another failed attempt at a proper knot. “Honey, I’m sure we can find you something that won’t make your ass look like a three-ton mammal’s rear.”

“I hate you!”

“What about that gray sweater dress?”

“It’s dirty!”

“And the red knitted one?”

“It’s **—** ” A gasp. “Oh, let me check that one.”

From her spot on their bed, Mikasa giggled. “Mama’s having a crisis.”

Her father had to agree.

“It’s clean!”

“That’s great, honey!” Then he mouthed to the girl,  _ Give her a sec. _

_ Okay,  _ she mouthed back. Ningyo sat on her lap, tattered hair brushed back all nice and neat, but Mikasa wouldn’t take her with them that day. She was nearly ten, almost a big girl, and big girls didn’t take dolls with them wherever they went.

Mama appeared out of the closet, cheeks flushed from the exercise of stuffing her butt into yet another small dress. “How does it look?” she asked her family, spinning on her toes.

Two mouths hung wide open.

“Holy fart,” Mikasa gaped.

“Holy shit,” Papa laughed.

“What?” asked Mama, perching her hands on her hips. “What is it?”

“You look amazing.” And she did. “A perfect ten.” 

Her face shifted with skepticism, black hair thrown messily around her head. Even in her flustered state, Mama was immensely beautiful. The dress she wore clung to her frame and accentuated her curves, which may not have been conservative enough for her standards, but by the whistle Papa gave when she turned to pore over her own reflection in the mirror, rising onto tippy toes and jutting out her hip to see her butt, it was obvious that _ he _ was a big fan, at least. 

“Are you sure it’s not, say, an eight?” she asked her husband. 

He smiled, an endearing twinkle in his eyes. “Would I ever lie to you?” 

With a scoff, Mama surrendered, the way she always did, to his flashy grin.

“I’m sorry I called you a slimy ass eating iguana,” she pouted, adjusting his tie. Mikasa realized how small her mother looked beside her father. She was tiny, a whole head shorter than him.

“You see,” Papa cringed, choking on his wife’s rough tying, “some things are better left untranslated.”

Mama snickered, her small nose wrinkling. 

And then Papa kissed her lips.

Mikasa covered Ningyo’s eyes, grimacing. “Blegh.” Old people.

Papa grimaced too. “Gross,” he groaned, licking his lips. “Carmex.”

Kisses don’t taste like chocolate.

“See, Ningyo? I told ya.” 

**—o—**

The day Mikasa Ackerman discovered what Eren’s lips taste like was the best and worst day of her life.

The sun was out and the world was cold but the sun didn’t care, it kept shining. Mama was in her red knitted dress, Papa wore a tie, and Mikasa’s pink dress and white leggings and gray boots were not as bright as the red scarf Carla had wrapped around her neck when she answered the door and grinned, “Hello!”

Mama blinked, taken aback by her enthusiasm. 

“Hi,” said Papa. “We brought cake.”

“Perfect!” chirped Eren, popping out from behind his mother’s waist.

“Chocolate?” whispered Armin. Upon seeing him standing by Eren, Mikasa gasped.

“Armin!”

“Mikasa!”

They embraced. It was tight and full of squeals, their hug.

“Come in, come in!” urged Carla. So they did.

Her home smelled of food, delicious home-cooked meals Mikasa couldn’t wait to delve into. She’d eaten nothing but a muffin that day, which the girls at her dance studio would frown upon because  _ ballerinas don’t eat carbs _ , but to poop with them. She was a carb-lover and proud **—** a good thing too, because Carla only cooked pasta.

Mikasa had never seen her more healthy, more full of life, than she was that day. Her hair was long, and hung loosely around her shoulders in mild, chocolate waves. She wore the slightest tinge of makeup, which she didn’t need, for Carla had a face angels could envy, eyes the stars dreamt about in their sleep. She was the sun indeed, a thornless rose, the paintings she etched on her skin. Her tattoos weren’t visible to Mama, whom she conversed with a great deal of the afternoon. The kids spent hours playing together, and when it was time to eat, voices were loud, plates were passed. They all ate as family.

That day was the best day of Mikasa’s life because after their bellies were full of food and chocolate cake, and Mama was helping Carla with dishes, and Grisha and Papa were laughing loudly about something only adults could understand, Armin took a potty break and Mikasa laid beside Eren on his bedroom floor, drowsy hands rubbing their bloated bellies.

“I am going to explode,” he moaned.

Mikasa groaned, far too full to muster sentences.

“Mikasa,” he said after a beat. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you love me?”

She craned her neck to peer at him, dark eyes wide. “What?”

“Ah, forget it.”

“Wait, no, why do you ask?”

“I’m just curious.”

She frowned. But then her neck began to hurt, so she laid her head back down. “I do,” she told him, tracing the glow-in-the-dark stickers of planets that littered his ceiling. Her words resonated in the air, drifted from her mouth to his ears, to Mars and Jupiter and Saturn. “I love you the way that stars love the moon.”

“Wow, that’s deep.”

“Thank you. I read it in a book once.”

“I love you too,” Eren whispered, closing his eyes. “I love you so much that it hurts. Right here,” he tapped a finger to his sternum. “Feels like it might pop one day, and all that will be left of my heart is a big black hole. I don’t get it, Mikasa. Why does everything hurt? I love things so much that I hate them. I don’t know how to stop.”

“How to stop what?”

“Feeling.”

“Feeling isn’t a bad thing, Eren. It’s a gift to have a big heart.”

“Is it?”

“I think so. It’s how God made you.”

“I don’t know if I believe in God.”

Mikasa gawked at the ceiling, balling her small hands atop her chest, right above her heart. “How can you not?”

“How could I? Look at my mom. How can God be real when people like her are sick, when there’s kids our age dying and wars going on?” 

His words brought along her silence. At a loss for words, she eyed the shaft of afternoon light that shone in from his window and painted his walls with a buttery glow. God is just like that, Mikasa thought, like a perpetual shaft of sunlight. You must open your heart to faith, and just as light pours in through windows, God will pour into your soul.

“God is real,” she muttered, seeking Eren’s hand. Her fingers brushed the side of his palm. His skin was warm. “God is everywhere, Eren. In the trees, in the grass, inside of us. In the sky, in everything. You don’t need to believe in something for it to be real. Mama tells me so.”

This made him think. His hand twitched at her touch, the subtle flutter of life at her fingertips. Their breathing was all either of them heard for a while. And then Eren turned to her and said, “Can I kiss you?”

“Say wut.”

“A kiss!” He sat on his heels, his eyes alight. “Let’s try it.”

“Really?” Mikasa rose from the floor, kneeling in front of him. “Why do you want to kiss?”

“I wonder what it feels like.”

“Hasn’t Auntie ever kissed you on the lips?”

“Nope.”

“Your papa?”

“Nope.”

“Dang.”

Eren ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “I would ask Armin, but I don’t think he would like that very much.”

Her eyes darted to his guitar, strewn lazily across his bed. Why couldn’t he ask her this the way they do in movies? Maybe sing her a song, strum away at the strings that reek of rust and age in an effort to tug at the ones of her heart, lure her lips closer to his and seal the deal, discover what both of them have long been wondering? They’re too young to have their first kiss **—** but by what laws? In fairytales, the prince never asks, he just does it. He just grabs her and kisses and revives the princess from her slumber and rescues her from her cell and her fate and herself and **—**

He kissed her.

He grabbed her shoulders. Pulled her close. Kissed her.

It was a loud, wet smeck. Nothing like what they show in the movies, or describe in storybooks. Lies, she’d been fed all her life. This quick, sloppy, lousy kiss was her new truth. Everything had changed. All it took was one whole mississippi, and everything changed.

“I’m sorry,” Eren whispered, his breath on her lips, glowing.

“How could you?” Mikasa gasped. “You just **—** ” 

“I’m sorry.”

“You just stole my first kiss.”

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s gone forever. You took it. It’s gone.”

“Agh!” Eren’s head fell to his hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I mess everything up, oh god, I’m sorry! Please don’t hate me, please!”

Whether the prickling sensations on her skin came from rage, or elation, she did not know. Her thoughts, her feelings, were all a garbled wreck. 

_ I love you like the stars love the moon _ .

And she did. She did. And Eren loved her too **—** not in the way that adults love each other, but in the way that nature loves the sun, the way even snow willingly melts under its heat in calm surrender. Some things are simply what they are. A kiss is just a kiss. Love is just love. Friendship is just friendship. All individual, all the same. His lips on hers, no sparks, no magic, just skin pressed to skin and chocolate cake in their breaths.

Mikasa smiled.

Eren still had his face in his hands. He was so ashamed. She smiled.

“You taste like chocolate,” she said. Green, teary eyes peered up at her. 

“Huh?”

“Chocolate,” Mikasa simpered, covering her mouth. “I can’t believe it. You actually taste like chocolate!”

“I do?”

“Yes!”

Eren bit his lip, and she almost wanted him to kiss her again, just to make sure she wasn't imagining it. 

Chocolate. 

Kisses really did taste like chocolate!!!

“That was weird,” Eren decided after a moment, to which Mikasa vehemently agreed.

“It was.”

“Let’s never do that again.”

“Let’s not.”

“Yeah.”

Then they laughed. Both of them. Giggling. Non-stop. How funny it was that something so fantasized about was such a bore in reality, as simple as blowing your nose, or pinching your arm, or eating ice cream. They wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands, and were about to venture out of his room to find Armin when somebody knocked on the door.

“Eren.” It was his dad. “Can I speak with you?”

“Sure,” he murmured, sparing Mikasa a quick glance. “Be right back.”

“Okay.”

He stood up. He left. The door closed, and she fell back on the floor, sighing, her tummy doing flippity-flops. Her hands found her cheeks, hot and vibrant and the color of her dress. “Best day ever,” she breathed to herself. 

And then Carla knocked.

“Mikasa?” The door creaked open slightly. “You in here?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have a word with you, baby?”

“Sure.”

Slowly, Auntie made her way inside. Mikasa swallowed, rising to her feet, dusting the skirt of her dress. Maybe Carla knew that she’d just kissed her son. Maybe she was coming in to scold her, or praise her. She was prepared for everything, anything. The best, the worst.

But when Carla said, “I need to ask you for a favor. I’m going away soon,” and Mikasa asked “where?” and she said “somewhere very far away, and I will not be back,” and she quickly learned that there are some things in life you cannot prepare for, only endure. Like wounds and cuts. You hold your breath, you wait, you bear through it. And you heal, eventually. But when Carla asked Mikasa to take good care of Eren while she was gone,  _ eventually _ felt ages and ages away. And then she saw why the best day of her life was also the worst. The high of having her first kiss quickly left her. She couldn’t taste the chocolatey after-taste of Eren’s lips on hers, or the joy that had wrung her belly and squeezed out giggles. Suddenly, pain was all she knew. Sadness was all she knew. Happiness faded and the sky turned black.

“I promise, Auntie.”

“Good.”

When they embraced, Mikasa inhaled the woman’s scent and memorized it. It was what home smelled like; like laundry detergent and morphine lollipops, and the subtle perfume that clung to the fabric of her red scarf. Red. Like blood, and roses, and the glorious bursts the sun paints across the sky as it sets. That was how Carla left her, like a flame that burned too bright, too beautifully, and thus burned out too quick.

**—o—**

The Most Important Lesson of All:

One cannot, and this means _ never _ , save anyone from themselves.

**—o—**

“Armin, where’s Eren?”

“Huh?”

“He wasn’t at the bust stop, at our bench. I’m worried.”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Didn’t hear what?”

“Mikasa, listen.”

“What? What is it?”

“Eren’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going to be gone for a while.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I don't know how to…”

“What? How to what? Please, tell me.”

“I'm sorry.

“Tell me, Armin.”

“This is why I needed you to be his friend. You’ve made him so happy, Mikasa. These past few months, he’s been **—** ”

“Armin! Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’ve… Gosh, Mikasa.”

“Please. Please. Where is he?”

“He’s at the hospital.”

“Why?”

“His mother died.”

“She… what?”

“I'm sorry.”

“So she’s…?”

“She’s dead.”

She’s dead. 

She’s dead.

She’s dead.

She’s


	13. Same Old Demons and Some New Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was painful, as I have a hard time writing out Eren and Mikasa's lives without each other. But it's necessary for their character developments. And thus, here it is. Enjoy!

Hitch’s got a crush, which is definitely not a good thing. Nope. Not at all.

You see, she doesn’t really know how or when the hell it happened, but she was caught up in the middle before she knew that it began. And the worse part is that the subject of her affection is a loud, chortling, spit-sputtering, walking sack of overbearing passion with a clandestine ass fetish and a thing for pizza with extra cheese. Now, try to guess who it is. Just try.

Yep. You got it.

Eren Jaeger isn’t the type of guy you wanna be crushing on for a plethora of reasons. First of all, he’s too damn attractive for his own good. That pretty face of his has girls falling for him left and right but the dumbass rarely ever notices. Seriously, you will never meet anyone more clueless than him. He can’t take a hint. Don’t ever try to flirt with him because he’ll have no idea what you’re doing. He’ll peek at the breasts you’ve pushed up to your neck and raise his eyebrows, open his mouth to say something, but instead of commenting on your efforts he’ll clear his throat and look away. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. It drives Hitch crazy.

Second, he’s too kind hearted. The thing about him is that he can’t help it. If he sees that you’re in need, he’ll sprint right into action and go to your aid. So when he’s helping you carry heavy shit up the stairs, or letting you stay over at his place because the short trek to your own apartment it too cold, or he’s throwing your favorite candy on your lap with “I saw this on my way home and thought of you,” it’s all simply because he is a good person, not because he holds any type of emotion towards you. It’s how he is. Kind. Gentle. Good. Thoughtful. That too drives her absolutely bonkers, because it’s all the things you  _ want _ him to be. You  _ want _ him to be perfect, and he is, gosh dang it. He is.

Third, he’ll worry you half to fucking death and not even know it. He’ll come back from a night out with a black eye and a bloody lip and say it’s nothing. He won’t eat right for days and shut you out of his life until he’s feeling like talking again. One day, he’s fine. The next, he won’t answer texts or phone calls and he’ll disappear into his room, binge-read a whole saga of books like a madman trying to find himself within the pages, and he’ll come out questioning why you were worried when he was “fine, Hitch. Stop overreacting.” And he doesn’t sleep. For days, he’ll stay up until his eyes are droopy and red and he’ll refuse to take any type of sleeping medicine because he’s all against medication for some reason only God understands. 

Fourth, he’s a man full of secrets. He’s honest, very honest. But sometimes, you’ll catch glimpses of his scars and wonder why he has them. And he won’t tell you. He’ll brush you off. He’ll make a joke and change the topic or pretend he didn’t even hear you ask him about it at all. Eventually, you learn to ignore them. But they’re always there, and you always wonder why. And he will never, ever tell you. 

Finally, the worst part about crushing on Eren is that you are guaranteed that he will never like you back. Never. His heart’s detached, despite how sensitive he is. There’s parts of him that are utterly unreachable, and in all the years that Hitch has known him, never once has she seen him fall in love. He’s dated, had flings, even set his heart out on loving people back the way they love him, but he always ends up bored, or disinterested, or staring at the text message you sent him like he doesn’t understand. Why do you like him? Why do you care? Why do you give him the time of day? In his mind, he isn’t worthy. So he pushes you away.

It’s heartbreaking, really. He has no idea how wonderful he is. And he’s smart. God, he’s smart. You should see him when he’s talking about something that he’s really passionate about. You should see the way his eyes twinkle, how the book he’s telling you about comes to life with the animated swings of his arms, and how the constellations he’s so happily explaining take shape in his smile and make his teeth shine like glinting stars. You should see how caring he is with children, how he understands them; they bring out an innocence in him he’s long since lost. You should see how he knows all these random little facts that no one else does, like why the color white glows under a blacklight and the mathematical equation for gravity and the last words of famous actors like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Marilyn Monroe. How does he even know all that shit? Like the scar on his palm, it’s a secret.

Hitch is fucked. Literally. 

She’s got a crush, and she doesn’t know how to control it. And everyday, it only gets worse. Petty aspects of him like the fact that he’s a belly sleeper and a blanket hog and that he’s got freckles on his right shoulder that trickle down his back make her happy ― and not in a good way either. Ugh. 

Sometimes, he smiles and Hitch doesn’t know whether she wants to punch him in the face or kiss him. Sometimes, he mocks her to piss her off and she doesn’t know whether to glare at him or lick up the entire left side of his face which, okay, is kinda weird but this whole infatuation with him is weird to begin with. And of course, he’s got no fucking clue of her growing feelings for him. He doesn’t know that she likes to stare at him while he sleeps, that sometimes she finds his shirt on her floor and brings it to her nose to inhale the traces him, that she regrets the night they both got plastered and she took him to her room and fucked him because the next morning he’d felt horrible and guilty but no, Hitch had to go right on ahead and play her “It’s no big deal, dumbass” card because yes, it  _ was _ a big deal to her. It was a  _ huge _ deal. She’d told him that they could do it casually from then on, that it didn’t have to mean anything, that they’d been friends for long enough that it shouldn’t change things between them ― except that _ hello, yes, I kind of really like you and everything has changed! _

She’s a liar. A stinking, filthy liar and she knows it too. 

She’ll never admit that she wonders what being lovers would be like. Because his heart already beats so strong and his skin burns feverish and his breaths rush out of him with might but still, Hitch is a selfish girl, and she wonders whether making love instead of having sex would be any different. Their kisses are quick and brief and she wishes they were longer. They already fuck enough days in the week but she wants more. More of him. More of this. More of him wanting her.

But she’ll never get it. Like, it’s so obvious. Duh.

And lately, he’s been spacing out more than usual. Ever since that Mikasa girl showed up, it’s been happening. His lazy knocks on her door are still the same, soft and sure and languid. And their meetings are still the same. And she still counts his touches and his breaths before it’s time to roll on the condom and then she counts the seconds until it’s bliss, until it’s pain settling in and the empty pang of unsatisfaction, and he’s laying on the floor beside her with his pants pulled down his thighs trying to catch his breath and that’s also the same except that now he’s quiet with another woman’s image in his mind. And that, you see, is different. 

“Hey,” Hitch raps, snapping her fingers in front of his face. Sweat sticks her bangs to her forehead, her bare back clammy against the floor. They smell like sex and disappointment, the two of them do. “Hey, Fabio.”

He swats her hand away. “You really should stop calling me that.”

“What’s itching you?” She rolls onto her stomach and props herself up on her elbows, the side of her forearm touching his arm. “You’ve been staring at the ceiling for a while now.”

“Nothing’s itching me,” he blinks, still staring up ahead. She sighs at his lie.

“Whatever,” and she’s about to get away from him when he reaches over and plucks a fleck of lint out of her hair, a sudden show of affection that freezes her. “What was that?”

“Fluff,” he says, blowing it away from the tip of his finger. “I dunno.”

She stares at him. And he doesn’t see, no, of course not. His eyes are closed, and he has one hand on his belly and the other prowling up the back of her thigh, his fingers brushing the bare skin under the hem of her skirt and it’s such a silly little gesture, and it means nothing to him and that’s the sad part because to Hitch it means the world.

She traces one of the scars on his chest with her finger, something she knows he doesn’t like. But it gets his attention enough for her to ask, “What’s wrong?” 

And now, he’s the one that’s staring. His eyes look sad and his jaw locks. 

“Tell me,” she whispers, tracing the shell of his ear. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“It’s just… It’s complicated.”

“And…?”

“Private.”

Hitch’s eyes shrink. “You’re kidding me.” He’s not. “Eren, I’ve sucked your dick. How are you talking to me about privacy?” 

Despite himself, he laughs.

“Tell me,” she persists, slapping him on the arm when he cups his face with both his hands and groans into them. “Tell me, tell me, tell me. Or am I gonna have to bully it out of you? Don’t make me bully it out of you, Eren. You know I’ll do it if I have to.”

“Ugh, okay, fine.” Her catty eyes crinkle. Eren scowls at her grin.  “Promise me you won’t laugh.”

“I won’t laugh.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise!”

He’s silent for a moment. She eyes the beads of sweat that glisten on the hollow junction of his collarbones, fighting the urge to lean in and taste them. His hair’s a mess, long strands all wild and tousled by her hands. He may not return her feelings, but that’s okay, for there are glimpses of glory in the vestiges of herself she finds scattered on him here and there. His eyes are fixed on her back, following the slow line his knuckles draw up her spine and it’s at times like this that Hitch could close her eyes and pretend that they’re decent people, losing themselves in one another without a fault in the world.

“It’s about Mikasa,” he admits. And suddenly, she’s not feeling all that glorious anymore.

“Ah.”

“I’m worried, Hitch.”

She sighs out of her nose, running a hand through her sweaty hair. “About?”

“Her fiance.” His hand stops cold on her back. “I don’t know, I’m just… I don’t think she’s happy with him.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Many things. She’s lonely. I can see it in her eyes. I feel like she’s not herself at all anymore.”

“People change, Eren.”

Now, his eyes meet hers. He’s frowning. “I know, but she shouldn’t be what she is now. She’s this sad, helpless little creature and that’s not the Mikasa I’ve known my whole life. It just… It breaks my heart.”

“Poor girl,” Hitch yawns, rubbing her temples. Gosh, she needs a cigarette. Bad.

“Yeah,” sighs the man beside her, with his pants still halfway down his legs and bare ass against her floor. She smirks at his present state, and is surprised when he doesn’t inch away from her when her hand caresses the side of his face, a gesture that is reserved only for lovers and not for… well, whatever they are. 

Slowly, he closes his eyes. His skin’s still hot. Breath so dense that it could be smoke, the tendrils that rise from the burning end of a cigarette, fumes that fill her lungs and intoxicate her. He is her nicotine. Her drug. The medicine that both poisons and cures her, and she can’t get enough.

“Annie told me that you spoke to her,” she croons, thumbing his lower lip. “So the Leonhardt is your girlfriend now?”

“For now, yeah.” 

“I don’t know how you managed it.”

He snorts. “Neither do I.”

For a moment, his gaze remains on hers, and she delves into the colors of his irises. They’re green, like her own eyes, but where hers are soft and hazel, his are bright and mixed with blue. An impossible hue that can only be described as what happens when a forest meets the sky. If the tops of trees were to mix in with the heavens, and all of nature would fuse and twist like paint instead of end on separate points, his eyes would’ve foretold the grandeur of such beauty, for they’ve always held it on their own. 

“Anyways,” she grunts, perching her chin on the palm of her hand. “So about this plan of yours… What’s the deal?”

“I’m gonna try my best to see how she’s doing. If she’s happy, then I’ll leave her alone. If she’s not… well…”

“You’ll try to win her back?”

“No. I haven’t decided yet.” There’s Eren Jaeger for ya. Always gotta be the hero.

God, it pisses her off.

“Can I ask you something, Eren?” 

“Sure,” he hisses, fidgeting on his back. “But make it quick, my ass is cold.”

She smiles, but it’s quick to fade. “Do you have feelings for her?”

Five, four, three, two… 

“I should go.”

One. 

And he pretends that he didn’t even hear her.

“Of course,” Hitch scoffs, dropping her head defeatedly. He rises off the floor and she can hear him pulling his pants up, his zipper closing, belt buckle clinking, all these little signs that he’s about to go. It makes her chest hurt, it really does.

Her nails scrape the hardwood floor, following the line of a small ridge and she hears him sniffling behind her, looking for his shirt. It always ends this way: him removing himself from her apartment, erasing all the hints that indicate he was once there, save for the condom in her trash can and his smell on her skin. It’s as if he never even fucked her. 

“Oh!” he blurts out suddenly. “I almost forgot. She’s coming to the New Year’s party.”

“She is?”

“Yes. Please, all I ask is that you’re nice to her. That’s all I ask.”

Hitch rolls her eyes, not even bothering to turn over and look at him. “I’m not making any promises.”

“Hitch.”

“No.”

“You’re gonna scare her off!”

“Fuck you. She isn’t my problem, Jaeger.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Yeah. Why should I give a shit about how she feels? She’s your issue, not mine.”

He’s silent for a moment, and she can feel his glare on her back. When he speaks, his tone is much too quiet for her liking.

“Fine,” so soft, so soft. It’s daunting.

She hears him get his keys and pull his shirt on, walk briskly to the door and wrench it open. He’s pissed. He slams the door shut so hard that the floor shakes.

_ Way to go, Hitch. Way to fucking go. _

She takes her time putting her bra back on and  picking her blouse up from the floor before walking over to the phone. With a sigh, she dials his phone number. She waits.

Two rings later and,  _ “What?” _

“Alright, idiot. I’ll do it.”

_ “Do what?” _

“It.”

_ “What, Hitch?”  _

She grits the words through her teeth, nostrils flaring. “I’ll be nice to Mikasa.”

A pause.

_ “Really?” _

“Yes,” she sighs, scratching her nose. “God. In fact, I’ll even take it a step further. You say she’s lonely so…”

_ “So…?” _

“So…” Ugh. No. Please, don’t make her say it. 

_ “So what, Hitch?” _

“So… I’ll try to be her… her… um… her f-f-f… f… f-friend _. _ ” It burns. 

His laugh is so worth it, though.  _ “Will you really?” _

“I hope she likes dick jokes, because yes.” 

He hangs up.

“Eren?” 

No answer.

But before Hitch can connect the handset with its base, the front door springs open and a cool breeze attacks her face. She’s about to take in a breath to speak, but Eren grabs her face and plants a hard kiss on her lips, pulling away with a smile so wide that his eyes glow.

“Thank you,” he beams. Flushed, Hitch slaps him on the chest. 

“You’re ridiculous.”

**—o—**

Soap suds creep between the spaces of her fingers, clinging to the ever-chipping nail polish on her nails. Jean’s mother likes to say that a woman’s hands and feet say a lot about her hygiene. A scoff, for Mikasa’s feet have long been squandered by countless hours on her toes, their crooked shapes consequential of too much time spent on pointe, too many days spent dancing and hopping and twisting in circles. And her hands, Lord, they’ve gone through too much and they show it. So, if she is to be judged by that logic, then she’s “a girl that needs to learn some self-respect,” as Mrs. Kirschstein would so kindly dispute.

Despite the unpleasant thought however, Mikasa’s unnaturally calm today. Jean didn’t have to work, so they spent the day lounging and playing with Jiji, talking about movies and his job and whatever else. And after laying on the couch for hours, whispering about nothing as if they have any sorts of secrets to keep, chuckling quietly to one another, taking naps in each other’s arms, groaning when their arms got tired or when Jean would kick Mikasa’s leg in his sleep or Mikasa would drool or Jiji would hop onto the two of them and use them as his own personal bed, they’d decided to cook dinner and make up for lost time. Since Jean was the cook, Mikasa was the one responsible for washing dishes. And despite her objections, he insisted that he’d help.

So she washes, and he dries, and one would think that they’d have less dishes to clean considering that it’s just the two of them, but nope. Somehow, whenever Jean cooks, he manages to create a mountain of dirty dishes. It’s incredible. Mikasa’s dragging lazy circles on a plate with the sponge when she feels him press a kiss to her temple.

“You’re humming,” he grins. She hadn’t known that she was.

“I’m just happy.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, then I’m happy too.” Another kiss, on the lips this time.

“You taste like marinara sauce,” she snorts. 

“So do you.”

“Mmm.” One more kiss. Another. Two more and then his hand latches onto her waist, but instead of pulling her closer, he nudges her away.

“We should finish,” spews the smirk on his lips. He nods at the dishes she’s still cleaning, and smiles at her pout. “We’re almost done.”

When they kiss again, it’s well after all the plates have been washed and put away, and Jean’s changing into more “presentable” clothes for his meeting later with his father. She offers to help him with his tie, which she uses as a means to pull him closer, lure his mouth to hers. Seconds tick away on the clock by their nightstand, and her breath is tangled in her throat by the time he’s laving kisses down her neck, eliciting a lightness on her feet that makes her feel faint, as if she could fall back from the force of his body pushed against hers. He holds her steady, hands to her waist, hers on his shoulders.

“Jean,” she gasps, bereft of air. 

“Hah?”

Her lips find his ear, offer a whisper: “Come to bed.”

“It’s five o’clock,” he chuckles.

“That’s not what I mean.”

He groans, and it’s not a sound she wants to hear. It’s frustrated. He pulls back to look at her, and she has to fight the urge to ram his head back down to her neck. She sighs out of equal frustration. 

“Baby, I’d love to, but I have to leave in like ten minutes.”

“Can’t you be a little late?”

“Can’t. You know how the boss is with his meetings.”

“You’re only going out for drinks.”

“Yeah, but it’s Dad. You know how he is.”

It hits her how needy she’s being, how whiny she sounds. Embarrassed, she fixes the fallen strap of her dress back over her shoulder, giving his tie a final tug to secure it into place. He makes a choked noise. Good. 

“What?” Jean frowns, loosening the tie’s grip on his neck. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“No.” He brings a hand up to cradle her face, passing the pad of his thumb over the thin arch of her eyebrow. “What is it? Talk to me.”

Her plea is so small, she doubts he even hears her. “I just wish you’d stay home at least once.”

But he does. “I stayed home all day today.”

“I know.”

“Then, what’s the problem?”

So many things are the problem, Jean. So many things.

For one, your mother sucks. As do your friends. They’re all horrible. Nasty, nasty people they are. And your fiancee rarely ever sees you anymore. You haven’t made love to her in ages because you’re always either too drunk or too tired and wow, she may be shy and quiet but she still has needs and she misses your warmth on her bed and your arms hugged tight around her and your soft skin pulsing with every beat of your heart and you, just you in general. She needs you so much.

So what is it? Why do you reject her? Why do you brush her off? Do you just not like her anymore? Is she not attractive to you? Has she done something wrong?

A crease pops out between her eyebrows. She scowls at a wrinkle on his shirt, and maybe it’s wrong of her to think these things, for she knows Jean is a busy man, and what they’re going through right now is just an interval, a respite before their life together picks back up again. But she’d be lying if she said she doesn’t yearn for his hands to linger on places they’re so quick to leave these days, to have him console old wounds when they randomly reopen, instead of having to treat them all on her own. They’re partners. Lovers. Husband and wife. And why doesn’t it feel that way anymore? What has changed? What’s gone wrong between them?

Because he’s hardly ever there anymore, she finds herself memorizing the sound of his voice, the prickle of his stubble, the softness of his hair and his touch because she goes days without experiencing them. It makes her wonder if things have truly changed for the better after moving in together. Because once upon a time, he couldn’t bear to live a day without her, shooting her messages and phone calls that lasted hours even if they were mostly just him talking and her throwing in a word or two to show that she was listening. And he’d show up randomly at her house with flowers because their scent made him think of her. And she’d catch him staring at her, or smiling to quietly after she’d speak, as if he were proud of himself for getting a word out of her. And once upon a time, he’d blushed and stammered and asked her to be his girlfriend, and he’d gaped at her when she’d said yes. And he’d been so chaste when he linked their hands together that one afternoon at the beach. And he’d been so careful when he’d first brought his lips to hers after a night out at the movies. And he’d asked for her consent that night she’d let him stay over, closing his eyes as he sat beside her on the bed and she took off her bra, not even cracking one eye open until she’d held his cheek and told him that it’s okay to look. And he’d cried when she’d agreed to marry him. And he’d promised her a good life when she said she’d go with him to this city. And he’s been the only other man she’s let into her life, her body, her heart, ever. And now things are different, that magic is gone. And she honestly can’t explain why. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, as if he had any insight into her thoughts. “I miss you, that’s all.”

“I miss you too.” This time, he’s the one that grabs her face and lock their lips together.

“Two minutes,” she sighs into his mouth. He laughs.

“Are you asking for a quickie?”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

“You deserve much more than that. I’ll try to make things brief with the old man, get back as soon as possible. Okay?” Of course. Of course it’s okay. It’s always okay. When hasn’t it been? “Hey,” he whispers, cupping her chin. “I love you.”

She repeats the words. Nine letters, three syllables, five vowels. 

“I love you.”

Her fingers hook around his belt and pull him to her. Words are trampled in his mouth when her tongue invades the startled slit of his lips, a hum churning in her throat as her teeth tug at his lower lip. She lets it jerk back into place and smirks at the hazy look in his eyes, flattening his tie against his chest and letting her hands stay there. 

“Have fun tonight,” she coos, breathless. When he dives to kiss her again, she pulls back and shakes her head. “We can’t, remember?” His hands frame her hips, thumbs denting skin through clothing, rubbing circles on her hipbones and it feels  _ so good. _ She takes them in her own, guides them back and lower, lower, until they’re sinking past the hem of her skirt and up the backs of her thighs to grope her ass. Golden eyes flicker over her features. She bites a moan against his lips, “You’ve got to go,” pressing herself against him, “to that meeting.”

“Fuck,” he grunts. For a flicker of time, she’s winning. He gives her ass cheeks a firm squeeze, and she’s about to say something when his hand leaves her rear and finds that spot between her legs that aches.

“Jean ― ”

“Wait for me.” He’s grinding circles on her through the fabric of her panties. She rocks her hips, gasping. “Tonight,” he murmurs, grinding slower. “Wait until tonight. I’ll make you mine. I promise.”

“I’m already yours,” she breathes, eyelids fluttering. “Jean, I want ―”

“Me?” He smiles, warm palms crawling up her body, eliciting a sigh. She throws her head back and feels his lips graze her neck, his fingers tug down the straps of her dress past her shoulders. His kisses are faint, teeth careful not to nip too hard so that not a single mark is left on her. He inhales her scent, plants a kiss on her bare clavicle. 

“I want you,” she musters, her voice shaky. Small.

“I want you too.” 

He licks a trail up her neck all the way to her jaw, the damp path he carves on her skin igniting. Mikasa’s breathing deepens, dappled by a whine when his hands frame her breasts and push them up so that his mouth can reach them. His teeth graze her skin, and it takes her a moment to realize that her back’s met their dresser. Trembling hands curve around the edge, nails rasp against the wood. Heart pounding in her chest, beating on his lips before they find her throat and murmur, “I can’t wait to taste you.” His hands are everywhere. His voice is everywhere. All she hears is her own breathing. All she feels is that damn  _ ache _ . She bites her lip, rubs her thighs together to quell the yearning, but the low drawl of his voice and the heat of his breath on her skin aren’t helping. “To watch you trying to hold in your little noises, squirming on your back. Right here,” he taps her chest. “Turns this pretty shade of pink; it’s my favorite. And your cheeks get all red. Your eyes go dark and heavy. Your breathless voice… It’s so quiet.” He smiles. “Until you scream, that is.”

“I don’t scream,” she protests weakly, melting in his hands.

“Liar.”

“I don’t!”

“Oop. You’re screaming.”

“Jean!” she laughs, thumping her fists on his chests. He laughs too, pecking the pert tip of her nose.

“I love your laugh.”

She pushes his hands off of her body, ignoring his protesting mewl. “See you tonight, then.”

And as she walks away, she can practically feel his eyes burning through her ass. Her glory would’ve been longer lived, had he not muttered as she was halfway out the door, “‘Kasa?”

She spins, raising her brows at him. Her cheeks flushed rosy, shoulders still bare.  

“Yes?”

“I think you should go to that party.”

Two stunned seconds. Two. 

Then her stomach drops. 

“Wh… What party?” There’s a cold prick in her chest. She plummets from the high of their teasing, frantic heart beating in her throat.

“Sasha’s New Year’s party,” her fiance clarifies, much to her horror. “It would be fun.”

“Jean…”

“She told me she ran into you the other night on your way back.” He pauses. Thinking. Serious.  _ Thinking.  _ “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…” Shit. How could she think he’d go this long without finding out? She should’ve told him. She should’ve mentioned it sooner. What if he doesn’t trust her now? What if this raises red flags? What if… God, and how he’s looking at her. Is he hurt? He’s hurt. You’ve hurt him, Mikasa. You’ve hurt your fiance. 

“I didn’t think it was important,” she breathes.  _ Please don’t be upset. Please. _ “I was going to tell you…”

“That’s okay,” he smiles meekly, eyes falling to the floor. Suddenly, he’s not this powerful, tall man, but a vulnerable, quiet creature. “You should go.”

She’s silent for a moment, gauging his reaction. “Really?”

“Yeah, it could be good for you. You know, get out for once. Make some new friends.”

“Right.”

“I… I was thinking, you know… Since I’ll be at work, that way you won’t be all on your own. Plus, I know Sasha will take good care of you.”

“So you…” she clears her throat. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Jean laughs. “Why would I? I’ll pick you up there when I get out of work. Sound good?” She nods, more out of plain shock than anything. He’s awfully calm, but what did Mikasa even expect him to be in the first place? Furious? Sad? Does she not know him well enough by now to predict his reactions? 

The floor creaks beneath his feet as he approaches her. She thinks, for a brief second, that perhaps he’ll take her and finish off what they started, remind her of his position in her life. But instead, his hand finds hers and he plays with the engagement ring on her finger, twisting it left and right. 

In this lighting and proximity, he looks so young, younger than she’s ever seen him. She brings a finger to his lips, just to feel them, just to feel that he’s here. And he’s so quick to kiss it. Of course he is. It’s Jean. Her tender, loving Jean. She knows him. She knows him.

It’s just like him to say, “I’ll cook you a big dinner. We can take a bath, light some candles, put some music on. We’ll have our own little party at home with Mr. Pringles.” 

She smiles. A warmth spreads over her chest, thawing the cold spike that had worried her earlier. “That sounds great.”

He pecks her forehead. “Perfect.” 

Again, Mikasa is halfway gone when he utters, “Um… baby?”

She stops, re-appearing by the door. “Hmm?”

But he doesn’t speak. His mouth opens for a moment, then falls shut. He shakes his head, swallows what he was just about to say to her.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

**—o—**

_ Brr… Brr… Brra…  _

Okay. You can do it, Mikasa. Just press the button. Press the thing. Just… bring… your… finger… right… on… there… and… press!

_ Brrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!!!! _

Wonderful. Now everyone and their mothers knows she’s here.

_ Brraaaaaaaaaap!!!  _

Just for good measure.

Okay, jeans. Eren told her to wear jeans. So she’s wearing jeans. And a shirt. Yeah. She’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and her scarf. The red one. Red. Like her fingertips. Why isn’t she wearing gloves? What an idiot. She should’ve brought gloves. It’s cold. There’s no snow, but it’s cold as balls. Are balls cold? Nah, they’re not. Fuck, her nipples are hard. They hurt. Shit. Press the button.

_ Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!!! _

One minute. If Eren doesn’t answer in one minute, then she’s breaking down the door. She can do it. One kick. She may be skinny as a twig but her legs are still strong. Hell yeah. Crush a man’s head between her thighs. Fuck yeah. Not that anyone’s head has been between her thighs lately. Sigh. Anyway, no. That’s not important. One minute. One. Never mind. Hurting nipples. Press the button. Go.

_ Brap! Brap! Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!!! _

Hurry up, Eren! Think of her soon-to-be frostbitten fingers! Think of her shivering! Think of her nipples!

_ “Yeah?”  _ Thank Jesus. It’s his voice. Sleepy and groggy and a little slow, but it’s Eren’s voice that breaks out of the intercom.

“Eren?” she shivers, his name reviving on her tongue. She blames the cold for her trouble breathing.

_ “Oh, hey,”  _ he croaks, with a livelier lilt in his voice.  _ “Mikasa. How are you?” _

“Cold.”

_ “Aw, I’m sorry.”  _ He’s quiet for a second. And then, _ “Wait! Shit, right. Hold on. I’ll open the door for ya.” _

She smiles to herself, fixing the scarf around her neck so that it covers her nose. 

And she waits.

Breathing through the fabric, inhaling her own scent on her clothes.

God, Eren _. _ He probably just woke up. What time is it? She glances down at her wristwatch. It’s a little after two. Yeah, he most  _ definitely _ just woke up.

But when the door flies open, it’s a different set of bright eyes and wild, tousled hair that greets her.

“Welcome!”

“Oh,” Mikasa pulls the scarf down from her face. “Sasha.”

“It’s so good to see you!” the woman chirps, glancing down at her jeans. Despite her cheery tone, her face falls.  “Did you… um, did you bring clothes?”

“Cl…” Mikasa shakes her head. “Clothes?”

“Yeah, silly! Clothes! For the party!”

“Well, no. I didn’t.”

“Then what’re you gonna wear?” 

“Um…” Mikasa extends her arms at her sides, presenting herself. “This?”

Sasha’s eyes fall to her jeans again. She frowns even deeper. Scowls, really. “Oh, no, honey. That won’t do.”

Bemused lips part to protest, but then a voice appears behind them like a ghost.

“Shit,” it says. Mikasa doesn’t need to wait for Sasha to spin out of the way to know that it’s Eren. 

And it is.

And she sees him.

And everything is perfectly still. His eyes. Sasha’s. Their breathing.

Butterflies dance in her belly, tug at her gut.

Her heart forgets its usual rhythm, picking up a dance of frantic kicking and thrashing. 

A flutter. A tune. The outstretched wings of a song that takes flight into something grander, something louder, wilder, alive. The silence they share is the music of old friends, as quiet as the whispers of time, as rich as memory. 

Something sings.

_ Go on. _

So she follows. Takes a step, crosses the threshold into his apartment building. Dust particles float in the air and shimmer like snow crystals. Some crunch underfoot, sticking to the soles of her boots. The apples of her cheeks are cold and rosy, thawing with a ruddiness that suggests the flush of embarrassment. She’s been here before, in this very spot, in this very position. Everything is different. Everything’s the same. Everything is silent, save for Sasha’s sudden burst, “Jaeger! Did you tell Mikasa to wear jeans for tonight?”

He rubs the heel of his palm on his eye. His hair’s a mess. Clothes ruffled from tossing around in his sleep. Voice hoarse, croaky. “Yeah, why?”

“Men,” Sasha tells Mikasa. “They’re so clueless.”

“You know, I’m standing right here,” he waves a hand over his face, squinting at her. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”

Mikasa smiles. 

That’s when he looks at her. Stares.

“Good!” Sasha grins, then snatches her right arm in one swift motion, linking it with hers. “I’ll be borrowing her for a bit. Is that okay?”

Mikasa realizes that she’s still smiling, and it’s hard to stop when his clouded gaze clings to hers, when his sleepy mouth curls into a smile.

“She’s all yours,” he says. 

Sasha’s shriek is loud enough to make them both cringe. “Sweet! We’re gonna have so much fun, Mikasa. I just know it!” She goes to whisk her away into her apartment, but Eren protests before they can make it to the door.

“Wait!” They stop, turn. He barely whispers, “Hey.”

He’s talking to Mikasa. Only Mikasa. The rest of the world melts away.

“Hello,” she breathes, her arm still trapped in Sasha’s. He’s standing on the stairs, looking so disheveled that it makes her laugh. Her voice is jittery and insecure, thrashing about in her throat like her heartbeat. It beats faster, faster; and maybe his does too, because he flattens a hand on his chest as if he were trying to calm it.

_ Hush, _ she whispers in her soul.  _ Calm down, heart. _

It doesn’t listen. 

“How are you?” Eren asks her. She inflates, happiness filling her lungs. 

“I’m good. You?”

“Good.” He swallows, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Just woke up.”

“Oh.” A smile. “I can tell.”

“Hah.” A scoff. A soft sigh, and, “Yeah… I didn’t sleep much.”  

They stare at one another. Both take in an inhale, but it’s Mikasa’s voice that breaks the silence.

“You excited for tonight?”

A pause. 

“Oh, yeah. You?”

Another. 

“Nervous.”

“Don’t be. You’ll be fine.”

Silence again. Then it’s Eren’s voice. 

“How’s uh… Jean, is it?”

“Yes. He’s at work.”

“Of course.”

She sighs, her pulse on her lips. “Did you have your coffee yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You should do that.”

“Yeah, I will.”

They both laugh. A light, simultaneous giggle. Nervous. Light. Careful.

“Okay,” Mikasa utters, not knowing what else to say. He’s still staring. She doesn’t mind.

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

Four seconds just standing there. And they would’ve spent more if it wasn’t for Sasha’s sudden exclamation:

“Welp! Super duper! Let’s a go! See ya!”

That’s when the world shifts and Mikasa is tugged into a foreign apartment, a rude awakening from the subtle moment Eren and her just shared. Her gaze no longer holds the colors of the earth and sky, instead now gawks at a pair of big, brown eyes that question, “Alright. Too much?”

She stammers, shocked. “I’m… T-too much what?”

“I had to put up a convincing act for Eren,” Sasha explains, crinkling her nose. “He’s worried that we won’t be friendly enough to help you branch out. But now I’m thinking that I overdid it.”

The raven nods, admitting, “A bit.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Mhm.” A whole lotta bit, if she’s honest.

“Shit.” Sasha chews on her lip, thinking. She tilts her head to the side. “How did Jean react to you coming here?”

“He’s alright with it.”

“Good. I told him I ran into you in the middle of the street. Not once did I mention Mr. Bright Eyes up there.” She nods to where they left Eren standing outside, and Mikasa does a poor job of concealing her sigh of relief. 

“Thank you.”

“It’s alright. Jean’s my friend, but so is Eren. And if there’s one thing I know about that fruit fucker is that he’s a good guy, and he cares about you. I can tell. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.”

“Thank you,” she repeats. She doesn’t know what else to say to her.

They’re still standing at the door. Mikasa’s eyes stray to the living room, yearning to go in, or even back out to Eren with his bedhead and sleepy eyes and sleepy voice and sleepy smile. Something’s changed between them. She can feel it. There’s an…  _ ease _ that wasn’t there before. A comfort. Just thinking about it makes her heart beat faster.

Oh, gosh. She’s smiling again. 

_ Shut up, heart. Shh! _

“I just… I get this vibe, you know?” Sasha continues. Boy, she’s a talker. “Like, you two… you’ve got this connection. It’s rare to find friendships like that. And I know that Jean tends to be… a little on the jealous side at times. So don’t worry, girl. Not a peep shall spill from these lips of mine.” 

“You’re very kind.”

She shrugs, “‘S no biggie,” and potters over to the kitchen, leaving Mikasa where she stands. 

“Come in!” she squeaks when she doesn’t move. “Take a seat. Make yourself at home. It’s nothing great but it serves its purpose.” 

Tentative, Mikasa follows suit. She shivers out of her coat, hangs it up by a coat hanger against the wall before taking a seat at the small breakfast table near the kitchen. Sasha’s apartment is messy like Eren’s, but instead of books and dust, she’s got art hanging everywhere, taking up most of her wall space and adding more color than she’s ever seen going on at the same time. It speaks volumes of her personality, like different genres of music playing all at once, filling the air with a noise that somehow translates to a song so attuned, so in harmony with itself, it becomes its own whole celebration.

“You know, I’ve seen you at those parties Jean always takes you to,” Sasha says, starting up the coffee machine. It whirrs to life, groaning. “You look miserable.”

Mikasa sighs, setting her purse down on the table. “Do I?”

“God yes. Jean may not see it, but I always do. You know what I think it is?”

“What?”

“You and me, we have a lot in common. You’re not from around here, are you?” She smirks when she shakes her head. “Let me guess. Grew up in the woods? You father was a hunter? People used to make fun of you in elementary school for the way you talk?”

Mikasa blinks, surprised at her accuracy. “Yes.”

Sasha gives her ponytail a firm tug, lips splitting into a grin. “Same here. It’s rough being an outsider. I could smell your distress from a mile away.”

Onyx eyes falls to the engagement ring on her finger; they frown. If Sasha could notice her distress as she says that she could, why did she never talk to her? She could’ve saved her a lot of nights of following Jean around awkwardly like a crooked tail.

“I don’t talk to anyone in those places,” she says suddenly, reading her expression. “The only reason I even go to those gatherings is because my family has close ties with Jean’s. They’re business partners. I’ve gotta tag along with Ma and Pa to ‘represent’. But then, the second I open my mouth and a ‘fuck’ comes out, I’ve shamed my family. I’m to be shunned and cast away into the sea to let the sharks have me.”

“Wow,” Mikasa mutters, shifting in her seat. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

An awkward silence follows. The apartment sits quietly, the art on the walls breathing stories they may never tell, quelling her burgeoning discomfort. The coffee maker sputters. Sasha attends it for a moment, brews herself a pot. 

“So,” she drawls, her back to Mikasa. “How did you and Eren meet?”

The girl smiles to herself, thinking fondly of the memory. “A mutual friend introduced us when we were little. He helped me get through a lot.”

“Like?”

“A lot of stuff.”

“Mmm. So you guys go way back then.”

“Yes.” She looks around, admiring a painting on the wall beside her. It’s a portrait of someone she’s never seen before. “How about you? How did you meet him?”

“God, it was so long ago. We’ve been neighbors for ages.” 

Mikasa’s eyes widen. “I was neighbors with him too.”

Sasha turns, smiling. “Yeah? Wow. Then you must know what pain he is to live with.” That, she sure does. “He’s been here since leaving his hometown after some nasty incident or somethin’ some six years ago, I think. Never talks much about it. Boy, he was weird.”

“Was he?” 

“Oh, yeah. Took him months before he even said a word to me, and my father’s his landlord. He’s alright now. I mean, he’s gotten better. But the first year he lived here was… I don’t know. Harsh.”

“How so?”

Sasha’s sigh is long. And sad. “Well, he had night terrors. Nightmares. Not sure exactly what to call them, but they were bad. Really bad. They’re better now, though.” She smiles, but Mikasa doesn’t return it, so she clears her throat. “Anyway, so Hitch and I got pretty sick of being woken up in the middle of the night by a bunch of ruckus after he moved in, and we didn’t know what to do about it. He was such a sad, helpless thing. I could’ve just told Dad to kick him out or something, but I took pity on him. A good thing, too. He’s got his shit together now. I must say, I’m kind of proud of him.”

“I see.” This is the first time Mikasa hears about his life after everything that happened. She finds herself feeling a mixture of sadness and relief. It’s good to hear that he is better now, but to find out that he suffered through nights like that all on his own… It haunts her.

“Do you know anything about that?” Sasha asks her, not seeing the way she stiffens in her chair. “Why he has nightmares? Can’t sleep? I’m telling you, I’ve known him for years and he’s never told me. But his scars… and there’s just… I don’t know. You can tell that he’s gone through shit. As far as I know, he doesn’t even have any family left alive. That’s heartbreaking.”

“I’m sorry,” Mikasa says, picking at some lint on her jeans, sighing. She stares down at her hands. They’re moving, registering touch, feeling the coarse fabric of her jeans. And yet they don’t feel like they belong to her, more like extensions of a body that she inhabits, but that isn’t hers. “I can’t really say why he is that way.” And even if she could, she wouldn’t tell her.

“I understand. But I reckon you were there, eh?”

Her eyes flick up to meet Sasha’s. She’s got a finger pointed to her right cheekbone, referring to Mikasa’s scar. 

“Please,” she’s quick to whisper, her voice so faint it barely escapes the tautness of her lips. She brings a hand up to her forehead, as if the topic were giving her a headache. And it is. “Let’s not talk about this.”

“Sorry.” Sasha’s apology is respectful. She doesn’t bring the topic back up again. “Anyway, so what are you?”

A sigh so long that it lingers in the air for a moment. All this talk of sad things… Mikasa wants it to stop. She wants to be with Eren. Not here. It’s nothing against Sasha, but how could she explain that perfectly benign, normal questions like  _ how are you? _ or  _ what are you? _ or  _ hello, what’s your name? _ bring with them such sad, complicated answers because she’s such a sad, complicated being as of late. With Eren, there’s no answers needed, no explaining to be done because he already knows all the answers to every question. And even if he doesn’t, he knows only the right ones to ask. 

“I used to dance ballet,” she says simply,  _ used to _ ringing in her soul. Her muscles ache with memory, lazy coils winding up the tendons that once stretched and flowed so well. A dancer who no longer dances. That’s what she is. A dud. Pathetic.

“Ooh, ballet,” Sasha chippers, swiveling to smile at her. “Like Historia.”

“Pardon?”

“You know, the little blondie chick? The cutie patootie?” She holds a hand out, referring to the blonde’s small stature. “She’s a dancer.”

Mikasa’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Oh, really?”

“Yep! She’s got a stage name and everything. Ever heard of Christa Lenz?”

“Historia is Christa Lenz?!”

“Yuppers.”

“Holy poop,” she gasps, slapping a hand on her cheek. Sasha cackles.

“Tell me about it. Her father owns a dance academy and everything. Good stuff. Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“Hot chocolate it is.” She grins when Mikasa perks up suddenly. “Eren told me about your love for chocolate. Another thing we have in common, you and I.”

Mikasa doesn’t object to the offer, muttering a “thank you” under her breath. She’s learned to say yes a lot more often, it seems. And to what can she blame this new habit of hers? Age? Her lack of social skills? Boredom? _ Eren? _

While Sasha prepares her drink, they discuss her profession. She’s a baker, apparently. A cake artist. A pastry chef. And yes, there’s a difference between all three — and she’s all of them. Her passion for food surpassed her need to satisfy her parents, as she claims to have aspired to do something more along her father’s line of work until she turned sixteen, and decided that her life was her own to make, not her parents’ to dictate.

She owns a cafe of some sort, where french pastries and stuff of the like are sold and she gets to converse with friendly regulars. It’s a good, simple life, she says. Good enough for her, which is all that truly matters. “I know that if I were to die randomly tomorrow, I would be content with knowing that I lived a good life, made something of myself ― and did it  _ my _ way,” she tells Mikasa as she pours some whipped cream over both their drinks. And a prick of jealousy stings her heart. If only she could say the same thing for herself. If only.

“Anyway,” Sasha says when they both hold mugs in their hands, blowing at the steam that rises from her coffee. She practically inhaled the whipped cream off of it just seconds after serving herself. She really wasn’t joking when she said she had a sweet tooth. Mikasa finds this aspect of her to be quirky, cute. She’s so genuine and real. A human being, not a puppet of power and wealth, as she’s so used to seeing lately.

“So you’re nervous for tonight?” the sugar addict questions. 

Mikasa slurps a sip of her hot chocolate. “Yes. Very.”

“Bah, you’ll have fun, girl. Don’t worry. Just a warning though: we’re a weird bunch.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Ah, yeah. You’ve already met Ymir.” Sasha throws her head back with a chortle, slapping a hand on the side of her thigh. “Ha! Wait till you see her tonight when she’s sober. She’s a real trip.” 

Mikasa smirks into her drink, whipped cream and hot chocolate shrouding her tastebuds. Why is it that everytime she’s anywhere away from home she finds herself indulging? Whether it be in chocolate, or in the presence of a past lover, or the foreign friendliness of a stranger, she tests herself and tempts fate, tittering around the forbidden, the exciting, the impossible. And for what? To prove a point to whom? Herself? Is she that bored with her life already?

Sasha disrupts her string of thoughts, announcing, “Annie’s coming too.” 

Mikasa straightens at the mention of Eren’s love interest. “Oh?”

“Have you met Annie?”

“No. Isn’t she Eren’s…?”

“Ahhh… Yeah! Yeah, yeah.” Sasha clears her throat, obscuring her gaze from her. And why won’t she meet her eyes? “She’s his hubba hub.”

“So they’re back together now.” It sounds more like a statement rather than a question. Nonetheless, Sasha responds.

“Yup!”

“Good for them.”

“Mhm!” 

Something feels a little… off. And it’s not the hot chocolate.

But before Mikasa can begin to form speculations, the door reverberates with such ferocious, loud pounding that it rattles at the hinges and shakes the walls.

“Jesus!” Sasha jolts, nearly dropping her coffee.

“Sash!” shouts a muffled voice outside. “Why’s your door locked?”

“Hold on!”

“Open it, bitch!”

“I’m coming!”

There’s more pounding. Sasha’s feet scramble along the floor, racing to end the dreadful knocking.

The door swings open, and a very disgruntled Hitch pops into the apartment like a fucking whack-a-mole. 

She’s opening her mouth to speak, stomping right in like if she were right at her own home, but Sasha’s distressed plea and Mikasa’s presence stalls her.

“We have a visitor,” Sasha peeps up from behind her. “So be normal.”

Her cool eyes land on Mikasa. Whatever words she was about to say extinguished on her tongue.

“Oh,” she drones, unamused. “Hello.”

“Hi,” the raven says, just as blandly.

“You’re Eren’s friend.”

“I am.”

“He said you’re coming tonight.”

“Yes.”

“Yippee.”

“Hitch,” Sasha scolds, giving her a light shove from behind to spur her onward. “Stop being weird.”

Hitch scoffs and waltzes over to the kitchen. “I’m not being weird.” She pours herself a cup of coffee, stealing a mug from one of the cabinets. Without pouring sugar or creamer into her drink, she takes a sip of her coffee (straight black, she’s hardcore like that) and peers over at Mikasa, leaning back against the kitchen counter.  “Sorry.” she says to her, and that has to be, truly, the most humane thing Hitch has ever said to her.

“It’s alright,” Mikasa assures her, glancing down at her feet. She can feel her eyes on her, scrutinizing, sharp as they always are. And she thinks perhaps a rude remark will follow. She will comment on her attire, express disapproval like Sasha had done; click her tongue and shake her head and say something mean or sarcastic. But none of these offences come. Her honey-hazel eyes leave her, and Mikasa is pushed to a corner of her consciousness, no longer worthy of her attention, it seems.

And when Hitch strikes up a conversation with Sasha, discussing events only they are familiar with, Mikasa sits and watches them. Their exchanges are witty and easy, Sasha’s more benign nature somehow complementing Hitch’s snarky one instead of clashing as opposites tend to do. They get one another, finish each other’s sentences.. They’re friends, and as Mikasa stares, she wonders if perhaps she ever looks this way herself. In retrospect, she really only has one friend: 

Eren.

Is this what they look like when they’re together? Two people who just… understand. Do they speak their own unique dialect, the way these two do? Sasha laughs at all of Hitch’s jokes, and despite how scarce they are, even Hitch’s chuckles bounce out of her lips once or twice and fix the mood into something so easy, so pleasant and right.

Friendship comes with its own brand of love. Mikasa had almost forgotten how wonderful it feels, but as she watches the girls talk back and forth, she is reminded. She isn’t feeling bored or left out in the slightest, but when Hitch glances her way, she seems to decide otherwise. 

Her feline body prowls her way, and then, without so much as a single word of acknowledgement, it plops onto the chair across from hers. In her own way, Mikasa appreciates the gesture. Hitch is trying to include her into the conversation as well. But this doesn’t make her any less intimidating. 

“Auuurrgghhhhh!!!” she yells, throwing her head back. “I need sex!”

“You just had sex yesterday,” Sasha retorts. “Much to my hearing’s displeasure.” Oh, poor woman.

“I need more!”

“You have it every day!”

“It’s not enough!”

“Oh, my God, Hitch.”

“I’m sexually frustrated, okay?”

Sasha is commenting something about Hitch being the most “sexually active sexually frustrated person” when Mikasa gives out a sad sigh, thinking,  _ I know the feeling. _

Suddenly, everything goes quiet. With a flush of embarrassment, she realizes why Hitch and Sasha stare.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Uh oh,” Sasha coos, pouting. “Is Jeanbo not giving you the cookie?”

The what? “No, that’s… That’s not…”

Hitch narrows her eyes at her, bringing the mug up to her mouth. “Mm. I think Jeanbo’s not giving her the cookie.” Her peachy lips stretch into a smile. “Look at her blush! Oh, you poor thing, you’re sex deprived!”

Sasha agrees. “Cookie deprived.”

“Famished.”

“I— What?”

“Ha! We’re just teasing ya,” she laughs, winking at Hitch.

Oh, Jesus.

“That’s the good thing about Eren though, right?” the catty smirk purrs. “He’s like the gift that keeps on giving.” 

It takes Mikasa a few moments to realize what Hitch is insinuating. 

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, sinking her gaze to the cooling hot chocolate in her hands. “I wouldn’t know.” Because when in doubt, you lie. Isn’t that how it goes?

Hitch, however, downright screams. “Wha-hat?!?!?!?!??!” An outrage. “Don't tell me you've never… Oh, my God. You never…?”

Mikasa frowns. “Never what?”

“Eren. Have you two ever—?” She makes hand signals.  A small circle with one hand. A finger entering it with the other. 

“Oh, goodness,” Mikasa gasps.

“You haven't?!”  Hitch guffaws. “And you've known him, what, all your life?”

“Hitch. Come on, now,” Sasha chides, eying her sternly.

“Seriously! But, I mean, just look at him! I don't understand how you could resist him. Nobody can resist him.”

“Apparently, some people can.” 

“So you've never even thought about it?”

“No,” Mikasa deadpans. “I have not.”

“What, you don't find him cute?”

“I just don't see him that way, Hitch.”

Silence.

Sasha slurps her coffee.

Hitch squints her eyes at her.

Mikasa swallows.

The silence breaks.

“So you're telling me you've never wanted to sit on his face.”

“Hitch!” Sasha wails, choking.

“You've never looked at his fingers and just, like,  _ known _ .”

“Hitch.”

“Or wondered what his lips might feel like on your neck, his breath all hot on your ear as he whispers dirty shit into it?”

_ “Hitch.” _

“Oh, come on! Don't tell me you've never noticed those cute lil' dimples at the small of his back and wondered what they might feel like under your hands as he—“

“Hitch! Seriously, that's enough.”

“What? We're just talking.”

“It's not an appropriate topic.”

“Why not?”

“Because, hello? She's engaged? To be married?”

Hitch  _ pfffft _ 's, some tiny drops of spit sputtering out of her mouth. “So?”

“So you shouldn't be asking her these things!”

“Don't be stupid, Sash. Just cause she's got a ring around her finger doesn't mean she doesn't have her own mind! Right?” Her eyes dig around for approval, finding none. “Okay, fine, whatever. I'm just saying, if I were you, I would've ridden that horse a long time ago.”

Sasha sighs.

Mikasa makes a show of taking a long sip of her hot chocolate, but her nose is buried in the mug to shield their eyes from the blush spreading on her cheeks. With her throat this tight, she cannot bring herself to swallow.

How is she supposed to keep a straight face during all this? Of course she’s noticed all those things. She was with him for years! He took her virginity, for crying out loud. But Mikasa can’t be honest, can she? What would be of them if she admitted their past? If she confessed all the firsts he took from her, all the things they did behind her parent’s back… 

Poop. Her face feels hot. The last thing she needs right now is to think of him that way. It’s absurd. It’s wrong. Never mind the many nights she snuck into his room while Armin was sleeping and slipped under the covers to feel his warmth, how she wouldn’t fall asleep unless he was beside her. And sometimes, he’d wake up. And they’d do more than just sleep. And she’d have to remind him that they needed to be quiet because Armin slept just a room away and he’d say “he’s deaf, Mik” but still, no, shut up.  _ Shut up. _ Why is she thinking these things? Oh, God.

They’re silent for long enough that the topic seems to have drifted off. But then Hitch looks up from her coffee, and dead straight into her eyes.

“Mikasa,” she rasps. “Tell me. Would you fuck him?”

“Hitch Dreyse!”

“What? I'm just asking her a question!” She waves Sasha’s wail away, turning to face a gaping Mikasa. “Listen, if you ever get tired of your man and you're looking for something sweet to wrap your legs around, I totally recommend him.”

Sasha moans. “Forgive her.”

“I mean, he's just…  _ oof! _ ”

“Hitch.”

“For days, for days.”

“Hitch.”

“Four  _ hours _ .”

“Hitch.”

“Sweaty. Rough. Intense.”

“Sweet baby Jesus.”

“You won't even be able to _ walk _ . And when he's hard? Ho-ho! You could chip a fucking tooth on that thing!”

“Ew!”

“I mean, talk about being. Really. Fucking.  **_HU_ ** —”

“OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH!!!!!”

Sasha’s hand stops Hitch’s mouth from uttering another word. But the damage is done. Mikasa’s entire face, and even the tips of her ears, are on fire.

“I would rather _ not _ think of my best friend’s junk, if you don’t mind!” Sasha yelps, groaning in disgust when Hitch licks the palm of her hand to coerce it off of her.

“You should, though. It’s fabulous.”

“Welp! So much for not scaring Mikasa off!” she glares at the smirking woman. “Thanks, Hitch. Thanks a lot. I’m sure she’s really comfortable now.”

Hitch goes to open her mouth, but a frenzy of giggles cuts her short.

It’s Mikasa.

She _ laughs, _ clutching her stomach, nearly toppling over from the force.

Sasha and Hitch stare at her with confusion. But Mikasa just laughs. She can’t control it. All this… it’s all so silly. Her laughter fills the air, wrenches her gut, turns her cheeks even more ruddy. A flash of shame crosses her features, but it’s lost. It’s been ages since she’s had a conversation this amusing with strangers. After tonight, though, Hitch and Sasha will become much more than that. She can feel it.  

“What’s so funny?” Sasha frowns, scratching an eyebrow. Hitch looks just as puzzled, her jaw going slack.

“I’m sorry,” Mikasa hiccups, failing to control herself. “I just— _ hic _ —find this so— _ hic _ —very funny!”

“God,” Hitch scoffs. And then, she starts laughing.

Sasha laughs too.

All three of them laugh together, their distinct giggles echoing through the apartment. If only for a moment, they are friends, not strangers. Friends.

By the time all three calm down, their drinks have gone cold. Sasha is pouring herself a second cup of coffee when Hitch asks, with a friendlier approach than what Mikasa’s used to getting from her, “So whatcha wearing tonight, girl?”

She gazes down at her attire, cheeks still sore from laughing. “This.”

“That? Oh no, you’re not wearing that.”

“I don’t have any other clothes.”

Hitch’s expression is pensive. “What size are you?”

“Uh… small?”

“Stand up. Turn.” Mikasa does as instructed. The two other women watch. “Mhm. Yep. You’ll fit in my stuff.” 

“You sure, Hitch?” Sasha smiles, her eyes glued to Mikasa’s rear. “She’s got a bigger ass than you.”

“Wha—?” Mikasa claps her hands over her butt, self-conscious. 

“Hush.” Hitch says. “That doesn’t matter when you wear a dress.”

“Okay, but her boobs. Also bigger.”

“Don’t matter.”

“It’ll fit too tight.”

“Nonsense! It’s New Year’s Eve. The tighter the better.”

Mikasa flits her gaze between the two of them. Sasha’s eyes have gone to her feet. Hitch still stares at her figure, sizing it up.

“What about shoes?” asks Sasha.

“What shoe size are you?” Hitch asks Mikasa.

“Uh… six?”

“Ha! Perfect! 

“Should we do it?”

“Hell yes.”

“Do what?”

It’s like something straight out of a movie. In perfect unison, and much to Mikasa’s dread, the two girls chipper simultaneously.

_ “We’re gonna give you a makeover!” _

Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed. Anyone. Please have mercy on her soul.   
  
  
  



	14. We Watched the Sun Set Slowly From Our Lives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sobbed.

**** Death is silent. 

Even planets die silently. There’s no loud, deafening boom. Only darkness. Empty black. And the vortex that sucks in its surroundings to fill the hole that’s left behind. 

If not even planets pass away with noise, Eren’s feeble mother was to go out the same way. One second, she was there. The next, she wasn’t. And a hole no vortex could ever, ever fill became Eren’s gaping heart.

The day he first kissed Mikasa Ackerman, he was ten years old. It was bad. Sloppy. Absolutely nothing like what he thought kissing the prettiest girl he knew would be like. But he was, despite all mortification, satisfied. His hands on her shoulders, the awkward smacking noise of their lips pulling apart, the loud pink screaming on her cheeks, all culminated into this great, childish moment, forever etched into the history of their lives. And for that, that day was a good day. But then his father knocked on the door, and asked to speak with him, and Eren left Mikasa behind and went away with Dad and then the Best Day Ever quickly became the Absolute Worst Day in the History of the Galactic Moons.

Then it was mature, adult hands that framed his shoulders. It was the prickly, stubbly kiss from Daddy’s lips on his forehead. It was “I love you, son,” and “I’m sorry but,” and “she won’t make it,” that became the three worst set of words that could ever be be uttered in the same breath.

“Why?” he’d asked his father.

“Why?” he’d asked the sky.

“Why?” he’d asked a god he wasn’t sure he believed in.

“Why?” he’d asked the one who wouldn’t make it, the one who wrapped her scarf around his neck, the one who seemed perfectly healthy ― healthier than he’d seen her in a long, long time ― and now laid in bed beside him with her cheeks hollow and her bright eyes dead.

_ Why? _

“Because,” said his mother, blinking slowly, her brown hair cascaded across the pillow they shared. “Some things in life we can’t control, only endure, honey.”

“No,” Eren spat. Anger boiled in his cheeks, the pit of his stomach. Raw, hot, burning anger. “No, Mom.” 

He wanted to tell her that he’d just had his first kiss. He wanted to tell her that Mikasa’s lips tasted like chocolate. He wanted to tell her how the butterflies in his tummy went all sorts of kookoo when he stared into her dark black eyes. He wanted to tell her,  _ I’m gonna marry that girl someday, Mom. You will be there, and I’m gonna marry her. _

But the words that left his lips were: “I’m scared, Mommy. I don’t know what I will do when you’re gone.”

“You’re strong, Eren. You’re so strong and brave. You make me so proud to be your mother.”  _ Stop, _ screamed his heart.  _ Stop, Mommy, stop. Shut up. Don’t talk like that, shut up! _ “I want you to always remember that you’re my hero. You’ve brought me nothing but happiness. I love you. You’re my ugly clam.”

“You’re my pearl, Mom.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to go. I don’t wanna live without you.”

“I’ll always be with you.”

That was when his lips began to shake.

“No, you won’t,” they quivered. “It’s not fair, Mommy. Why did God have to make you sick? Why couldn’t God make you healthy?”

“Don’t cry,” she whispered, wiping at the dense, fat drops that spilled from his glassy eyes.

“Little boys aren’t meant to be without their moms. It doesn’t work that way. I don’t want you to die. I can’t live if you die. Please stay with me, Mommy. Please.”

His eyes weren’t the only ones oozing tears. In his life, Eren had only seen his mother cry twice. She  _ never _ cried. Not in sad movies, not when she was in pain, not when she was angry. The two times he’d witnessed her tears was when  he fell from a tree and got sent to the emergency room, and once after a big fight with Dad. That’s it. Mommy never cried. Ever.

But now, she was crying. She was staring deep into Eren’s eyes, and even though his vision was blurry, he could see the way her features fought for control, how they cracked under the mighty weight of sadness.

“You’re breaking my heart,” she said, and Eren knew he’d gone too far. His father had warned him not to do this, not to cause any more emotional strain on his mom. But he couldn’t help it. He was just a kid. He was just a kid and he needed her, he loved her, he needed her, oh god. He needed her the way that fishies in the ocean need water. How the hell was he supposed to live without a mom? You don’t just throw a fish out of the ocean and tell it to breathe. It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t ―

He sobbed. Eren sobbed because he was hopeless, and felt a big knife pierce through parts of him that shouldn't be feeling any pain yet. His heart was too premature to be breaking the way it was. His life was too young to be falling apart already.

“Please,” he begged, hiccuping. “I don’t want you to go. I want to be with you forever. Don’t go. Please. Don’t go, Mommy.” She couldn’t take it anymore. Exhausted ― so, so exhausted ― she wrapped her arms around her son. So close, so close, that he could feel her breathing, her chest sway, and wondered why it couldn’t always be that way. She was dying. She was dying. Soon, she would be gone.

How?

How?

How, how, how, _ how  _ would he live without her?

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, baby.”

He inhaled her words, her soul, her heartbeat; kept it safe within him to carry forever and ever, for the rest of his life.

From an early age, Eren Jaeger knew that prayers weren’t anything like phone calls. They don’t get answered, you see. They’re just wisps of hope the desperate soul sends out to the empty, soulless sky. But Eren prayed that night. He prayed, in his mother’s arms. He prayed, in the tears that fell from his eyes and soiled her clothing. He prayed, in the slow droop of their eyelids as they fell asleep. He prayed, in his dreams. He prayed. He prayed. He prayed, and his guardian angel held him.

**—o—**

Death is silent. 

What isn’t, however, is the sadness it brings.

Mikasa’s chest burned from how hard she was crying. Mama held her. She stroked her hair. She wiped her teary eyes and red cheeks and cleaned the sweat from her neck and forehead and held her so, so tight, held her to keep all her pieces intact but Mikasa, young, little Mikasa, she fell apart.

She was wailing, “My heart, Mama. My heart hurts.”

“It’s okay,” her mother said. In her voice, she could hear Carla.

“It hurts,” she whined again, breathless. Tears seared her eyes and dripped from her chin. “It hurts so much. I can’t breathe, Mama. It’s breaking.”

“Shh, shh.”

“It’s broken.”

“It’s okay, baby. Mama’s got you. I’m here.”

Mikasa collapsed into her mother’s arms. Mama held her tighter. Unlike her, she was a silent crier. So when Mama started crying too, not even God could hear her tears. And Papa watched from the door, with worry in his eyes, as his girls knelt and wept together.

Losing a human being is unlike anything a child could ever fathom. It’s not like losing a toy, or a friend, or missing an episode of your favorite TV show. The tragedy that comes with true loss is a whole new kind of death in itself. It’s like death for the living. Your heart still beats, and your lungs still breathe, and your brain still works, but there’s something in your soul, something spiritual, that withers completely, a big chunk of you that the dead take with them. And it never comes back. Never.

“I didn’t pray hard enough,” Mikasa confessed to her parents, with snot running down her nose. “I prayed for Auntie. I prayed, but I didn’t pray hard enough.” 

Maybe if she’d made her more flower crowns, or eaten more of her lunches, or played with Eren more and kissed him earlier Carla would still be alive. If only there was something she could have done, anything to keep fate from clasping its ugly claws around her and snatching her away. If only children's’ innocence was enough to save people, to keep the terrible from happening. How much purer could anything get? A child is a clump from Heaven’s clouds, tasseled and molded to garner all of the world’s goodness. So why does God allow things like this to happen? Why does God allow children to suffer, goodness to suffer, for people to lose their innocence at such a fragile age? It was beyond Mikasa. Before this day, she had never known true pain. She had never known what it felt like to be betrayed by God, by the very clumps of skies that made her.

The world was too young to lose Carla Jaeger. 

As Mama held her, Mikasa realized that Eren would never feel his own mother’s embrace again. He would get married, and get a job, and kiss girls and paint masterpieces and learn new songs on his guitar and Carla would never be there to see it. He’d be a dad, and Carla would never be there to see it. He’d learn to drive, and Carla would never be there to see it. He’d build a spaceship for Armin, and take him to the outside world with an endless supply of chocolate for Mikasa and she would never be there to see them land on the moon, befriend aliens, prove to scientists that space rocks are made of cheese.

“She’s dead, Mama.” It was like saying that the sun was dead, that the planets fell out of orbit, that the earth forgot how to spin. And it felt that way too. It felt like an impossible tale. And that’s the saddest part… for it was the inexorable, inexplicable, incomprehensible truth. Not even God could change it. Not even  _ God. _

**—o—**

Eren wishes that sadness was quieter. He pretends that he doesn’t hear his father weeping. If he were a better person, a better son, he would comfort him. But Dad’s an adult, and adults have stronger hearts than children. He’ll live. Unfortunately, they both will. 

Mommy passed the same way all other things do. Death doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care that she was funny, or that her laugh was extra loud, or that she was witty and beautiful. It took her. It took her laugh and cut it short. It took her jokes, her smile, her dimples, her voice, her tattoos. It took her and Mikasa believes in God but Eren doesn’t anymore because no good God would ever let this happen. Mommy was good. Mommy was gentle and kind and she loved so much and so deeply and she deserved to live but now she doesn’t and Eren is so sad, so heartbroken. How will he ever breathe again? How will he smile? When his mother died, everything else died with her. There will still be soccer practices, there will still be snow, there will still be ice cream trucks rolling by and women getting pregnant and flowers blooming and people having sex, and the world ended, but somehow everything else kept happening around him, all else moved on.

When Mikasa kissed him for the second time, it was on the cheek. It was to curl her arms around him in a gossamer embrace. It was to breathe, “I’m sorry,” with a little sheet of sheen veiling her eyes. It was to take him by the hand and say, “let’s go, Eren,” and save him from his home, where his father’s snivels echoed, where his mother’s laughter echoed, where her absence was so deafening it made even the walls cry.

“Wait,” he whispered, marveling at the sound of his own voice. His body felt hollow, like an empty shell. How he was still moving, still thinking, still  _ talking _ was beyond him.

“What?”

“I need something first.”

“Your toothbrush?”

“Well, yeah, that too. But no.” What he needed was his mother’s scarf. Dad was out talking with Mikasa’s parents, so they traipsed over to the bathroom and snatched his toothbrush, traipsed over to his bedroom and snatched a clean change of clothes, traipsed over to what used to be his mother’s room, and then he turned to Mikasa and said, “Do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Can you go in and get Mommy’s scarf for me? I don’t wanna go in there.”

Mikasa sucked in a sharp breath. “Yes.” And she was off. Anything for Eren. Anything for her best friend.

The door creaked on its hinges, and as she entered the ghostly room, she tried not to breathe through her nose. Everything smelled like Carla. Everything looked like her too. Machines. A messy bed. Morphine lollipops. As Mikasa went over to retrieve her scarf from the mattress, she had to fight the urge to plop her face into the pillows and inhale the remnants of her scent. But then she thought of how she must’ve laid on that very spot dying, and she didn’t want to remember her that way. Not her smell. Not like that. The smell of her sweaters, her hair, her food, that’s what Mikasa wanted to keep with her. So, quickly, her little fingers snatched the scarf, but when she whirled around to sprint out of the room, a soft thud made her feet stall. 

A letter.

She peered at it for a moment, blinking. Then she bent down, took it, turned it to read the lettering written on the front. It was Auntie’s handwriting. A relic, an artifact, a sliver her tremendous heart had left behind.

_ For My Ugly Clam _

A gasp slid between her lips. It was for Eren.

“Mikasa?” she heard him call from outside. “What’s taking you so long?”

“Just a second!” In a panicked whirl, she shoved the letter down her shirt. She was ten, so her chest was still flat and boobie-less, but her training bra was snug enough to hold the letter in place. She came out, fidgeting slightly. The paper prickled her skin, tickled her sternum. 

“I’m ready.”

Eren’s eyes were red. They stared at the scarf in her hands. His fingers moved to grab it, but then gave up.

“Let’s go,” he said, his voice quiet. “I need get out of here before I suffurocate.”

_ Suffocate,  _ Mikasa thought, too tired to correct him. In this house, she decided, she was suffurocating too.

**—o—**

“He’s a boy, Charles.”

“He can’t stay in that house. Plus, Grisha needs to get out too. We need to take care of him. It’s the least we can do.”

“I don’t know.”

“My love, my wife, listen to me; Eren needs us. He helped our daughter. We need to repay all his family has done for Miki somehow.”

Mama sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. What was it about that boy, that Eren, that made her violate all of her own stern rules?  _ No boys allowed in the house  _ quickly went flying out the window, for her daughter and him were upstairs, taking turns to use her little bathroom to prepare themselves for bed.

“How long will he be staying here?” she asked him.

“For as long as he needs.”

“When is the funeral?”

“In two days.”

“And then where will he go?”

“Back home to his father.”

“Alright. He stays here. For as long as he needs to.”

“Thank you.”

When Mikasa walked in, she found Papa with Mama’s face in his hands, his lips on her forehead, her palms on his chest. Parental PDA was gross, but with her heart at such a fragile state, every tiny glimpse of love was a miracle to Mikasa. It was awe inspiring: how the world was so cruel, and still some things could remain beautiful.

“We’re ready,” she announced, frightening Mama, who jumped away from her husband and gasped when she saw Eren appear as well.

“Eren,” Mama said, pushing a tendril of hair behind her ear. “Ready for bed, love?”

All eyes went to him. 

His, however, clung to the floor.

“Eren.”

Nothing.

“Eren?”

“Mm?” His voice was lethargic. “Did you say something?” Slowly, slowly, it fell out of him.

“I said, are you ready for bed?”

“Yes.” By the looks of him, he was already sleeping. 

It was hard for Mikasa to understand. With how wild Eren was by nature, she thought his sadness would be the loud type, the type that shatters mirrors and punches walls and hurls items across rooms. But he wasn’t a loud mourner. He was the silent type, the type that turns off, ratchets down the volume.

“Mrs. Ackerman,” he breathed, rubbing his sleepless eyes. “Can I have something to drink?”

“Of course. Is chocolate milk alright?”

“Yes.” 

Mikasa knew that Eren hated chocolate. She crinkled her nose, and decided to test her luck. “Can I have some too?”

“No. No chocolate before bedtime. You know the rules.”

“Poopie.”

“Strawberry milk, Miki. Yes or yes?”

“Yes!”

Mama violated another one of her stern rules. She gave the kids permission to take their drinks upstairs, something she vehemently refused to allow in the past. But Carla wasn’t dead back then, and Eren wasn’t here, and he wasn’t pretending to like chocolate milk for the sake of not requesting another drink and being bothersome.

It was as if he didn’t want to be felt. His presence, an omnipresent force that once palpitated so brilliantly, was now impercetible. His footsteps weren’t mighty stomps anymore, but quiet taps that barely rose above silence. He might as well have been floating, ambling along like a ghost. 

Loss has a tendency to quiet the soul, to mar the unmarrable.

In Mikasa’s mind, the definition of life itself was Eren Jaeger. Every emotion that had ever been felt, every storm the skies had weathered, every flower that ever wilted or bloomed was present in his spirit, carried by his smile and his bright blueish green eyes. And once upon a time, he’d told her that he wished he knew how to stop feeling. And now it seems that he finally accomplished his goal.

Sleep was pulling on her eyelids when she heard her bedroom door open. She didn’t need to peer to know who it was. The ghost strolled into her room, slithered into her bed, pulled her pink covers over its shoulders ― but only after asking for permission first, which she quickly granted.

Her eyes stared into his. The moonlight crept in through her window, bathing one side of his face, occulting the other. The crescent reflections in his eyes professed a liveliness he no longer held within him. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, clutching Ningyo to her chest. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” Eren answered. “I have trouble falling asleep. And I forgot to bring my meds with me.”

“Your meds?”

“Mhm.”

Mikasa frowned. “Have some of my strawberry milk. That always makes me sleepy.”

“Okay.”

He moved, one nuance at a time, and reached for the glass on her nightstand. Most of it was gulped down in one go.

“You’ll choke,” Mikasa told him.

“Shh.”

So she shut up.

When he laid back down, Mikasa’s eyes were playing tug-of-war with sleep.  _ Stay awake, _ she tugged.  _ No, _ tugged her eyelids.  _ No, no, no! _

“You suck your thumb?” Eren asked her, furrowing a brow.

“Sometimes,” she mumbled, smirking sleepily around her finger. “Mama hates it.”

“You’re such a baby.”

She kicked his leg under the covers.

“A strong one,” he grimaced. “Ouch.”

When she snorted through a smile, with her little thumb still in her mouth, Eren marveled at the crinkles of her eyes. She was beautiful, more beautiful than anything that could ever be explained. Mom was beautiful. Sunsets were beautiful. Stars were beautiful. Mikasa, you see, was a whole new brand of beauty in itself.

“I miss her,” Eren murmured, curling his fingers around the scarf on his neck. “I miss her so much, Mikasa.”

“I do too,” the girl breathed, blinking slowly. “I miss her so much that I can’t function. Sometimes, I feel like smiling or laughing, but then I stop. Or as soon as I do, I think of how she’s no longer here, and then smiling and laughing just isn’t worth it anymore.”

“Right? I feel the same way.”

“I miss her spaghetti.”

“I miss her laugh.”

“I miss her eyes.”

“I miss her hair.”

“I miss her feet.”

“I miss her voice.”

“I miss her jokes.”

“I miss her,” sighed Eren. “I can’t believe she’s gone. She’s really gone, Mikasa.”

There was silence.

Nobody knew what to say. Not Eren. Not Mikasa. Not Ningyo. Not the strawberry milk in their bellies or the moon in the sky. But it witnessed the way its silvery glow shifted on the boy’s features when the girl brought a hand up to his face. Her palm on his cheek was soft, small. Fragile.

“I’ll protect you,” she told him. “I promise. I will protect you, Eren.”

“How?” he asked her helplessly. How? How? How could anyone protect him, save him from himself?

“Once upon a time,” she whispered, threading her fingers through his hair. Eren closed his eyes again, lost in her voice, lost in her touch. “There was an ugly clam. It was so ugly that all the other clams hated it, but one day a bunch of divers came to eat them all and inside that ugly clam they found the most beautiful pearl in all of existence.”

“That’s not how the story goes,” Eren snorted. “You gotta tell it like Mom did.”

“Nobody can tell it the way Auntie did.”

“True.”

“But you know what, Eren?”

“What?”

“You are my pearl.”

This shocked him. He gawked at her, stunned.

“Really?” he gasped, amazed that he could be anyone’s pearl, be more than the simple ugly clam. “Do you mean that?”

“Mhm,” the girl nodded, still sucking on her thumb. “You are my pearl and clam and everything. But Carla is the queen clam.”

“She was the queen clam,” he whispered, the phantom of a smile on his lips. “She was the queen of everything.”

“Indeed.”

Slowly, the young girl fell asleep. But before her eyes closed, before the moon shifted its position in the sky, before the sound of her squeaky little voice escaped him, she said, “Goodnight, Eren,” and he could smell the strawberry milk in her breath. 

“Goodnight,” he told her, wondering what her lips might taste like now that Mom was dead. He had a feeling that they ― and everything else he’d ever taste again ― would be different.

But he never kissed her lips that night. Not even when her sleepy breaths billowed beside him. Not even when her thumb fell out of her mouth. Instead, he kissed her small hand, her forehead, the teeny tiny tip of her nose. It was when his lips pressed to her eyelid, when he felt her lashes tickling his skin, that he realized that God wasn’t necessarily an abyssal entity. Sometimes, God was just love. God was just a girl, snoring softly in her sleep, with her thumb coated in saliva and a dark thread of hair fallen across her cheek. 

**—o—**

“Stars are big balls of gas that radiate light,” said Armin, fixing the tie around his neck. “Not souls, Mikasa.”

“I beg to differ,” she murmured, crossing her arms over her chest. “There is no scientific proof that specifies that stars are big balls of gas.”

“Um, there is.”

“Where?”

“NASA?”

“To poop with NASA.”

“Gosh,” groaned Armin. “You sound like every other religious person out there.”

“I’m sure that was meant to be offensive,” said the girl, “but frankly, I have a funeral to attend.”

“As do I.”

“Then you agree with me. Carla is a star now. A big, fat, gassy star.”

Despite himself, Armin smiled. 

“Okay, Mikasa.” He hid Carla’s letter in his jacket, scoffing through a smirk. “But what star is she now, hm?”

This made her think.

“The sun,” she decided. “She’s the sun now.”

**—o—**

Papa always said that funerals are for the living, not for the dead. What, exactly, do they accomplish? They are gatherings of breathing lungs and beating hearts and thinking brains. They are sadness parties that do nothing for the corpse within the casket. They don’t help the dead go to Heaven, or rest in peace, or their journey to the stars any easier. Funerals are made to help the living live on by letting go. By throwing dirt on all the memories that was once a human life, a clump of sky that God let them all borrow and decided to take back.

Eren did not cry.

Mikasa and Armin watched him. He did not cry as his father wept beside him. He did not cry during his eulogy. He did not cry as Auntie’s casket was lowered into the earth. He did not cry when a sea of flowers flooded her tomb, made it come alive somehow. So many colors. So many flowers. They were even brighter in the snow.

Eren Jaeger did not cry. Not once. Not once. He showed no signs of sadness, no feelings at all.

“We have something for you,” Armin told him, not bothering with fancy hugs or gloomy I’m sorry’s. He knew his friend well enough to understand exactly what he needed at that moment. To Eren, the world must’ve felt too loud. All day, he was pulled into awkward embraces, listened to how sorry everyone was, how amazing Carla was, how great everything was but isn’t anymore. So Armin and Mikasa pulled him aside while their parents were conversing, and gave him a pocket of peace.

“This is for you,” he offered him Carla’s letter, the one Mikasa had found in her room. “We won’t tell you how we found it, but we think it’s good that you read it, Eren.”

His green eyes studied his mother’s handwriting. 

“No.” he murmured. “I don’t want to. I’m so tired.”

“We’ll be right here with you, Eren,” piped Mikasa. “Come with us. Let’s go to your mother’s grave. We can read it there in silence.”

“Please,” begged Armin. “We’re here for you, Eren. Please, read your mother’s letter. Please.”

Eren scowled at the letter. 

“Fine.”

Then they walked.

A thin sheet of snow covered the grass. It cracked and mushed beneath their shoes, chilled their legs when they knelt before the sea of flowers. Eren’s hands were pink from being exposed to the cold. He did not care. He tore the letter open with his fingers, sighed, and began to read.

Eren hated reading.

He hated reading  _ so  _ much.

His friends waited patiently for him to finish. It didn’t take him even five minutes. He did not cry. He did not cry. Even when he was finished, he did not cry.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” he said quietly, holding the letter in his hand. “She was gone before I knew it. Just… gone.”

“Then tell her everything now,” was Mikasa’s proposal. “Tell her everything you wanted to say. Now’s your chance, Eren.”

“She can’t hear me,” he snapped at her, annoyed. “How am I supposed to speak to the dead, huh? She’s dead. Stone cold fucking _ dead. _ ”

“Eren,” begged Armin. “Please.”

He sighed. It was heavy and exasperated and so thick that it clouded the air. 

“Fine. I’ll talk to this stupid tombstone.”

They waited. The flowers waited. The tombstone waited. They waited.

“Mom,” Eren began, his voice suddenly much softer. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for yelling at you sometimes, and for being a pain in the butt about taking showers and helping with laundry and washing dishes even when I knew that your hands hurt too much. I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry that I cuss sometimes, that I get into so many fights and worry you. I’m sorry that I didn’t pick up my toys when you told me to, or practiced the guitar as much as I should have. You…” He stopped.

“Keep going,” Armin prompted. “Go on.”

“You…”

“That’s it.”

“You can do it, Eren.”

Finally, finally, finally, he began to cry.

“You loved me so much,” Eren whispered, tears welling in his eyes. “You loved me more than anything, and I was so unfair to you sometimes. I should’ve told you that I loved you more. I should’ve told you how happy you made me. I should’ve…” His hands balled. Veins flexed on his fists. “I should’ve done more to make you happy, Ma. You taught me everything. You gave me everything. Even when you were sick, Mom, you gave me your all. You wouldn’t eat so that I would have food. You wouldn’t sleep so that I would have someone to talk to. You wouldn’t lay down until you were sure I was done playing hide and seek, or any other silly game I made you play with me.

“I love you. I love you so much, Mommy. I will love you all my life. I miss you. I miss you like crazy. I miss you with every breath I take, with every bite of food, with every leaf on every tree in the entire planet.

“I should’ve told you how thankful I am for everything you did for me while you were alive. I’ll never feel your heart again. I’ll never hear you breathe. I’ll never see you angry at me or Dad again and that, Mommy… that’s so painful. It hurts so much.

“Before you died, I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for loving me, for being my mom, for accepting me when no one else did. Thank you for living the time that you did. I will never forget you. I will never forget you, Mom. I promise I’ll be good to Daddy. I’ll take care of him, and Armin and Mikasa too. I’ll be a good boy, I promise, I swear. I’ll behave, I’ll make you proud. I’ll make you so, so proud, Mommy.

“I hope you find the fluffiest cloud in the sky, and anytime I hear anybody laugh or smile, I will see you. Goodbye, Mommy. I love you. Goodbye.”

His head fell. He sobbed. His shoulders shook as affluent tears dripped off his chin and landed on his jacket. For the first time in her life, Mikasa saw Eren cry.

“You did it,” she whispered, peering at him through her own tears.

Armin was smiling. He was crying too.

“I’m sorry,” Eren whimpered, “I’m so sorry, guys.” He nearly stumbled when Mikasa threw her arms around him. Seconds later, Armin had his arms around him too.

They cried. The sun began to set, dwindling rays caressing the snow, the sky, their weeping figures. All three of them held each other, and as Mikasa hugged her favorite boy in the world ― the one who came marching into her life with a dirty soccer ball and big, flashy grins ― she realized that sometimes princes needed saving too. So she held him. Together, Armin and Mikasa, they held him: two walls, one roof. A family. A sanctuary. 

A home.

**—o—**

 

_ For My Ugly Clam _

 

_ My dear, sweet Eren.  _

_ How mad at me I know you must be. You might feel that I betrayed you, left you behind all alone in the world. But if there is anyone I know that is strong enough to survive through this, it’s you.  _

_ My boy, you’ve made me proud beyond what you can imagine. A million perfect pearls don’t compare to the worth you have for me. Please forgive me. I wish that God had given me more time. I am envious of all who will get to see you grow. I can already imagine it, your dimple and your freckles contrasting your manly voice, how much taller than me you’d grow up to be; and yet all I can picture in my mind is my little Eren, the one that stared at me when I first held him, the curious little toddler that would laugh whenever he fell. God, you cried so much. Your father and I didn’t get a good night’s sleep until you were four. That’s when everything changed, though, wasn’t it? That’s when Mommy got sick, and you started worrying. You would bring me flowers that you’d pick from our garden to see me smile, you’d scold Daddy for not making me tea, for not cuddling with me to keep me warm when I was shivering. So you would do it yourself. You’d microwave water and plop a little tea bag inside and potter over to my bedroom. I have to tell you something, honey, you were never very good at making tea. But I would drink it all. How could I not, when your big eyes were watching me? When your little dimple would pop out when you grinned? When you’d insist to be the big spoon, even though you were much smaller than me? You kept me warm, though. Whenever I was cold, you kept me warm. _

_ It’s when I think of all these things that I feel a pain greater than any illness well up inside me. But things are always as they should be. Always. In that, I have faith. _

_ I will try to make this brief now, as I can hardly control my hands. You know how much Mommy hates that, when her hands start to cramp. So if I could take my beautiful, ample life and cram it all into one tiny, breathing accomplishment to summarize everything that I am, have been, and ever will be, it’s you.  _

_ I love you, son. I love, I love, I love, and that is enough. You alone have been worth living for. Every time you see a star in the sky, or feel the wind on your skin, or the sun on your face, I want you to remember: I will always be with you. _

_ I adore you. Beyond anything words could ever dream to express, I adore you. _

_ -Mom _

  
  



	15. The Pleasure's All Mine (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because so much is going to happen in this chapter (cough cough Eren and Jean meet) I decided to split it into two parts. Here are some playlists I made for Eren and Mikasa: [him](http://8tracks.com/naralynnia/him), [her](http://8tracks.com/naralynnia/her). Now, Enjoy :)

Mikasa pores over her own reflection in the mirror, cringing at what she sees. Months of wearing Prada heels and bodycon Gucci dresses should’ve prepared her for this—but, quite frankly, nothing could’ve prepared her for the skimpy ordeal that is Hitch’s wardrobe. “Guys,” she heaves, sucking in her tummy. “I don’t know. I look… weird.”

“Oh, come on!” screams Sasha. “Let us see you!” The bedsprings cringe under her bouncing body, mattress groaning with her squeals. “Come on, come on!”

“It’s… It’s too tight.”

“I’m sure you look great!”

“No.”

“Mikasa, come out of that bathroom before I go in there and take you out myself.”

“Hitch, chillax.” 

With what sounds like a roar/bleet of frustration, Hitch does quite the opposite of “chillaxing”. She yells, “Come out!”

Mikasa sighs. “Okay, I’ll come out—but please don’t laugh.”

“We won’t!”

“Come out, woman.”

“Okay, I’m coming. Don’t laugh.”

“Hurry up!”

The bathroom door screams on its hinges, announcing the presence of a very shy, very insecure young woman. She waddles over to them, stands.

They gasp.

“Holy mother of fuck.”

“You look…” Sasha snorts into her fist, smiling. “You look… Wow. You look—”

“Like you got two asses,” Hitch deadpans. 

Eyeing the way her tongue rolls inside her cheek, how her sharp eyes take in every curve and ridge and shape of her body, Mikasa’s face darkens. 

“No!” Sasha blurts out with a start, reaching to stop her from waddling back into the bathroom to change out of the clothes. “Wait, hold up. It looks good, really. Like,  _ wow _ . Amazing.”

A sigh. It’s troubled and peeved. Mikasa’s hands fall to her stomach, where she can hardly feel the sways of her own breaths. “But I… I feel strange.”

All eyes fall to the blonde one of the three. She’s scrunching her eyes, clicking her tongue in disapproval.

“Hitch?”

“Something’s missing.”

“What is?”

“Hmmm…” Prowling closer to Mikasa, she fixes her gaze on her chest. The frown grows deeper, and what  _ was  _ going to be a question becomes a startled yelp as her hands dig right into the bust of the dress to pull—yes,  _ pull _ —Mikasa’s breasts up to accentuate what  _ already _ was too much cleavage hanging out.

Violated, horrified, aghast, the raven gapes. “You just—”

“There,” grins the titty-groper. “Now, that’s perfect.”

Sasha scoffs, still smiling. “Damn, girl. You look hot.”

“I can’t breathe.”

“That’s how you know you look good.”

“But my breasts—”

“Look great!”

“But—”

“And your legs too!”

“I’m—”

“Do you have abs?” Hitch asks, startling her,

“I… what?”

“Abs. Are you shredded?”

“Um… not really?”

“Well, I can see your stomach through the fabric and damn… girl, nice four-pack.”

“Thanks.” It _ used _ to be a six-pack. Sigh.

The girls are going on about who’s the most shredded person they know. Sasha insists that Ymir is the one with abs of steel, but as soon as Eren’s “ripped, chiseled eight-pack that could cut your tongue” is mentioned, Mikasa clears her throat.

“Guys… I don’t know about this.”

Sasha’s eyes are softer when they land on her, and seem genuinely concerned. “You don’t like it?”

“I feel…” Oh, what’s the word? Ridiculous? Provocative? Uncouth? “Naked.”

Hitch is the one to scoff this time. “What’s wrong with feeling naked?”

Well, in fact, many things, Hitch Dreyse. For one, her ex is right next door getting ready to go out to a party she probably shouldn’t even be attending and guess what he’s wearing? Jeans! Not tight-ass dresses that makes his ass look like it popped out a clone, thank you very much.

“Mikasa,” Sasha smiles sweetly, “just give it a chance. You’ve never worn anything like this, yeah? Let this be a first. Have fun. Feel sexy. This is your night too!”

Sexy?  _ Sexy? _ God. Mikasa isn't sure she's ever felt sexy a day in her life. 

“If you’re really that uncomfortable,” croons Hitch, “you can change. We won’t force you to wear anything you don’t want to, but I’m not lying, you look good. I’d bang you.”

“It’s true. And Hitch isn’t someone who gives out compliments so easily.”

That was a compliment? 

“Thanks. I… I’ll keep it.”

“Great!”

“But don’t you have a cardigan I could wear? At least to cover up slightly?”

Hitch’s smirk twists up into a full-fledged smile. Mikasa is left gawking, and she nearly cannot fathom that this woman—who is helping her and being friendly to her now—is the same one she found half-naked at Eren’s door all those weeks ago. 

“Sure, hun. I’ll find you one.”

“Yay!” Sasha chippers, clapping her hands quickly. “I’m so excited! You’re gonna break necks tonight, girl.”

“And hearts,” adds Hitch, prowling away into her walk-in closet with a wink.

Mikasa sighs, gazing down at the open-toe heels she’s stuffed her feet into. “Or an ankle.”

**—o—**

“So this Mikasa chick. Is she your sister?”

“She’s not my sister.”

“I thought she was adopted.”

“She’s not.”

“I thought you said you lived together.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s adopted.”

“Were  _ you  _ adopted?”

_ “No.” _

“So you have no siblings.”

“You already know all this, man.”

“So this means you’re sleeping with her.”

“I’m not sleeping with her.”

“Why not? She’s not your sister.”

“Is that the only reason I’d have not to sleep with her?”

“I mean, yeah.”

“Um. She’s engaged.”

“And?”

“Are you stupid?”

“I don’t understand.”

“She’s with someone else.”

“And…?”

“And…!”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“God, you’re an idiot.”

“I don’t get it! If she’s as hot as the guys say, why aren’t you boning her?”

“I don’t have to _ bone _ every single thing that breathes and talks, Con.”

“Are you saying that I do?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So why aren’t you sleeping with her, then?”

“Connie. I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh, okay! I see, I see. It all makes sense now!”

“Connie.”

“So that means she’s your sis— Ahh! Not my face, man!!!”

“Where’s Eren?”

“He’s getting ready with the guys.”

“Are they all at his place?”

“Dunno. Reiner’s there, I think.”

“And Connie.”

“Shut up.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Shut up.”

“I can’t believe you hit him so hard he passed out.”

“He accused me of fucking my sister.”

“You have a sister?”

“No!”

“Well, you’ve fucked worst things. Like, say, there’s a fruit…”

“Reiner.”

“A succulent, juicy fruit…”

“Please.”

“Called papay— Ow!”

“You have the eyes of a goddess.”

“The body of a goddess too.”

“Actually, you’re a goddess. Done. She’s a goddess!”

“You guys…”

“Chin up. Goddesses don’t blush.” 

“I think she looks cute when she blushes.”

“Thanks for the input, Sasha.”

“It’s true!”

“Are you done yet?”

“Shh. Don’t move. Liquid eyeliner is the bane of my fucking existence. Don’t even breathe. If you fuck this up, I’m gonna have to start all over again.”

“Hitch.”

“What?”

“Hitch.”

“What, Mikasa?”

“I have to sneeze.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I can’t hold—”

“Mikasa!”

“ _ Ahh-choooooo!!!!! _ ”

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That noise. Sounded like a sneeze.”

“No. You’re just crazy.”

“Bro, I swear I heard a girl sneeze.”

“Who cares? It’s probably just Hitch or something.”

“No. I know Hitch sneezes. That wasn’t a Hitch sneeze.”

“Connie.”

“What?”

“Let it go.”

“...”

“...”

“An unrequited noise arises in the solemn silence of the night—”

“Ughhhhhhhhhhh.”

“— _ avast! _ Germs! From the nose! Of a female!”

“Eren, just punch him again.”

“Can I?”

“Please!”

“Wait! What if it was Misheesha sneezing?”

“Her name’s Mikasa.”

“Milka… uh....”

“There’s no way. Her sneezes are soft.”

“And you know this because…?”

“???”

“Because she’s your sister!”

“Give me the beer.”

“No.”

“Give it to me, Connie!”

“NO! IT’S MINE!”

“I hate you.”

“Why?”

“Your ass. I just— I hate you.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Hitch’s just jealous. She wishes hers looked like that.”

“I hate you.”

Mikasa smirks. “I hate you too.”

“Bro, you have such nice hair.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Can I braid it?”

“Don’t fucking touch me.”

“Eren, I’m gonna kiss it.”

“Connie—”

“Muah!”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Dude… That was so gay.”

“Damn.”

“Boom! Bam! Viola! She’s ready!”

“And now I’m deaf.”

“Sorry. I got excited.”

“Now that Mikasa’s all done, it's our turn to get ready.”

“WHOO!!!!”

“Jesus, Sash.”

“Sorry, I'm just so friggin’ PUMPED!!! Let’s DO THIS!!!!”

“Well, you sure will be pumped—”

“—YEAH!!—”

“—now that Connie’s here.”

“Huh?”

“Did you see that, Mikasa? How quickly she turned to look? And she  _ swears  _ she doesn't like him.”

“I don't!”

“Yeah, and I'm a virgin.”

“I hate you.”

“Whatever loser. I'm letting you borrow my heels, by the way.”

“The shiny ones?”

“Yep.”

“WHOO!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!”

“I mean, my New Year’s resolution was  _ so _ to have severe hearing loss, Sash. It's fine, it's cool. Not like I need it anyway.”

**—o—**

Two hours. 

Two torturous, laborious hours later and finally,  _ finally _ , the girls are done. 

Hitch makes walking in tall heels and tight dresses look like an art—which she’s mastered expertly, to the point where nobody would be surprised if she could sprint for miles without breaking a sweat. It’d taken her ages to do Mikasa’s makeup, but in two minutes tops, she’d painted on the fiercest winged eyeliner and the most flawless contouring Mikasa had ever seen.

Sasha, on the other hand, doesn’t do more than apply a single coat of mascara to her eyelashes. A true, effortless beauty, she’s surprisingly nimble in her own pair of borrowed heels and skimpy attire. And after Hitch and her take a couple of selfies (to which Mikasa vehemently refuses to be a part of), the front door to her apartment explodes open with a loud, boisterous blast.

“I’M HERE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It’s Ymir.

“Shh!” hisses Historia, yanking on her girlfriend’s coat. “Ymir, please.”

“Sorry, baby.”

“Ymir!” Hitch sprints over to the tall brunette (told you she could do it) and fucking  _ wraps _ herself around her, jumping into her arms and coiling her legs over her waist. With a labored groan, Ymir catches her.

“Hey, there, sweet cheeks,” she chuckles at the squealing Hitch, whose grip on her neck is throttling. “Missed me much?”

“Like hell, bitch.”

“I missed you too, hoe. Now hop off me.”

Sasha’s next. She wraps her arms tightly around the freckled woman, groaning happily, swaying from side to side. Historia is sweet and meek as always, kissing everyone’s cheeks — even Mikasa’s — and saying hello.

“The boys are downstairs waiting,” she says. At the thought of facing Eren, Mikasa’s stomach does several flippity-flops. Her excitement and simultaneous dread mix into some odd, overwhelming concoction that makes her queasy yet content. Is it possible to feel two extremes at once? Is it normal to feel fierce yet frightened? Brave but scared? Courageous and sheepish? What  _ is _ all of this? What is this shining, colorful whirlwind of activity resonating within her?

Life. 

She is alive. 

_ You are living. _

Her lungs swell, release, and as she stands wearing another woman’s clothing, she feels so attuned with herself, as if the plug that attaches her body to her soul finally connected. For months, she has worn clothing that were hers, but belonged someone else, lead a life that was hers yet made for another.  _ Not me,  _ her heart kept telling her, dissociating from all outer senses, removing her from the rest of the world. Not me. Not me.  _ This is not me. _

And now, in Hitch’s dress and heels and makeup, Mikasa feels… alive. Strong. She breathes in the smell of the girls’ perfumes, sees the twinkling smiles on their faces, feels the fibers of her coat as she slips it onto her shoulders, tastes her heartbeat at the back of her throat and hears the thump, thump, thumping of heels on tiled floors until they’re all outside and about to make their way down the stairs to where the boys—to where _ Eren _ is waiting and she feels, she breathes, she thinks, she  _ is _ like herself again.

They walk. Onward into the crisp night. 

The air is promising.

**—o—**

_ Thump…  _

_ Thump…  _

_ Thump…  _

“Ugh, Eren, would you stop that?”

The tennis ball freezes in his hand. “Stop what?”

“That—” Bertholdt’s arms flail with empty gestures. “Noise.”

“Oh.” Eren smirks, rolling the ball between his fingers. “You mean this?”

_ Thu-thump! _

“Yeah.”

_ Thu-thump! _

“Stop it.”

_ Thu-tump! _

“Great. He’s double bouncing it now.”

Connie groans over the incessant hammering. “Jesus! What’s taking them so long?”

“Patience,” mutters Reiner, throwing the ball back at Eren when it accidentally hits him on the arm.

He catches it, throws it again.

It hits Reiner’s chest this time.

“You fucking—”

The ball goes flying toward a giggling Eren. He curls sideways to avoid the blow but it still hits him right on the leg—that doesn’t stop him, though; his boredom is too great. 

He hurls the ball and it hits the floor, a wall, then bounces right back at him. He captures it, throws again, never misses. The repetitive thuds are beginning to sound very much like a heartbeat, when suddenly a sharper, hollower thump makes his head turn and steals his full attention.

Mikasa.

She stands, like a god, at the top of the stairs.

“Holy…”

“Fucking…” 

_ “Shit.” _

Everything halts, hangs for a breathless beat as her eyes move, slowly, to latch onto his. And when they do, they linger, as does the pause in his pulse, the rigid posture they all acquire. Her hair dangles in gentle curls, and he’s never seen it this long, this marceled, this exquisitely arranged around her face, voluminous tresses of silk the angels garnered from the night sky. Her eyes are captivating even from afar, pink lips plump with a sheen that makes them seem as if kissed by starlight. Red is the dress she wears, and her coat shields the rest of her figure from his scouring eyes but he has seen her in dresses before and in high heels but never like this, never how she is at this moment. She looks brand new, made of ash and porcelain and roses. She parts her lips to speak, a tendril of hair curling by her chin, white glimpses of teeth calling out to him when—

“Ow!  _ Fuck! _ ”

“Eren!”

“Holy shit, are you—?”

“Whoa!”

“Mufasa!”

“Catch her!”

“She’s okay, she’s alive!”

“Mikasa, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she pants, struggling back to her feet, her arms curled around the railing. “I slipped. Missed a step, that’s all.”

“You nearly ate shit!” screams Ymir. Historia slaps her lightly on the arm.

“It’s these heels,” she tells them quietly, embarrassed at the scene. Eren’s groaning with one side of his face in his hands, Reiner clutching his gut nearby and nearly keeling over with laughter.

“He got ball-smacked on the face!” he sputters, beet-red.

“Are you okay, man?”

Groans. Reiner laughs harder.

“Jesus. You two are a wreck,” says Sasha.

Mikasa clears her throat as if nothing ever happened.

Her eyes fly to Eren. He’s glaring at Reiner now.

Something within her somersaults. All of her somersaults, actually.

She falls again.

**—o—**

“Remind me never to wear heels. Ever.”

“I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to laugh.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I really do.”

“Listen, at least you didn’t get smacked on the face with a ball, like  _ somebody _ you know.”

“This is true. How’s your eye?”

“Fine. How’s your ankle?”

“Fine.”

“God… We _ are  _ a wreck.”

He doesn’t tell her that while she was falling, he caught a glimpse up her dress.

Lace panties, eh?

**—o—**

It’s chilly, but lately, Mikasa scarcely feels the cold. In her provocative attire—assuaged only by the conservativeness of her coat—she should be a popsicle. But she’s not. Because Eren is with her. And when he’s with her, the air doesn’t feel the way it usually does, the weather doesn’t register the way that it should. Everything is upside-down, backwards, silly.  _ Right. _

They do not speak—not until way past nine o’clock. And when they do, it’s after pottering noisily to Sasha’s cafe by foot (the same french cafe Eren had taken her to the night they ran into each other). Mikasa had no idea Sasha was french— _ I’m not! I just like the language and their pastries! _ —but alas, the menu with foreign lettering does not matter, for alcohol is the grand special tonight. All sorts of mixed drinks line the countertops once Ymir and Hitch get their hands on a few bottles of questionable liquids, and the guys pull a couple of tables together to play a mean game of pong, which Mikasa quickly discovers not to be good ol’ regular ping pong, but a game where one throws small plastic balls into Solo cups in pursuit of intoxicating the opposing team. A silly game, she reckons, but Eren is excited as he ever is, grinning from ear to ear with a bruise on his eye that Connie keeps trying to poke at, that Hitch keeps trying to treat, that he keeps dismissing as nothing to be concerned about. 

They do not speak—not until Mikasa sits by the makeshift bar the girls have arranged, and takes a sip of her sparkling water with a sigh. Eren’s voice appears suddenly, out of nowhere.

“Hey, stranger.” Conjured from thin air, his smirk glints with a tinge of relativity. “Having fun?”

“Of course,” Mikasa smiles, because with Eren, she can’t _ not _ . “This sparkling water is supreme.”

“Ah,” he leans back on the counter, propping his weight back on his forearms. His shirt tightens against his chest, outlining the ridges of bone, the subtle swells of muscle. Knowing that she should look away, she doesn’t. “I was wondering what you had sneaked up in there.”

“H2O. Carbonated. Highly intoxicating.”

“Oh-ho. Watch out, everyone, we have a badass in our midst.”

She feels herself blush. It starts at the base of her neck, crawls up her throat, engulfs her cheeks and lips and addles her ever-so-calculated thought process. All she can think is  _ pecks, pecks, pecks, pecks _ and wow, yeah, she can definitely feel herself losing a tinge of control, so she does what any normal person would do in her situation. She punches him.

“Ow,” Eren whines, frowning. “Totally unnecessary.”

“Very necessary.”

“If it wasn’t because I know that’s how you show affection, I’d punch you back.”

“You can’t hit a girl.”

“You’re not a girl, you’re a tank.”

“Am not!”

He pulls his sleeve up, revealing a red patch on his bicep, the burgeoning bruise right on the spot where she’d delivered the blow.

“Oh,” she gasps, “I’m sorry,” clutching his bicep with both hands. Her hands are warm on his skin, make his entire body buzz. “I’m sorry, I won’t hit you again, I promise.”

Eren goes to speak, when they both notice her hands linger.

He grins, the fucking bloke, flashing that stupid friggin’ dimple.

“Poop,” Mikasa murmurs, thoroughly aware that she violated their bubble rule (but there’s so many rules… Can’t there be no rules at all just for tonight?). She curls her hands into fists, tearing them away. It’d felt so natural to hold him. Letting go, not so much.  “I’m sorry. It was… instinct.”

“That’s alright.” Still grinning. “I’m not complaining.”

Blushing again. “Oh, hush.”

“Ah, I know,” Eren groans dramatically, stretching his arms so that they flex. “It’s my muscles, isn’t it? They’re hard to resist.”

“Eren, I am mentally punching you right now.”

“But you can’t. It’s your new year’s resolution not to be an abuser.”

“I’m not an abuser.”

“You just sexually molested me.”

“How?”

“My arm. It has been held in ways that I can’t— Ow!”

“To poop with my resolution. You deserved that.”

“Fair enough.”

They laugh. Together. 

A fleeting realization introduces itself. Funny, Mikasa ponders. Very, very funny how humans are capable of surpassing tragedy the way that they are. How many times hasn’t she felt like the absolute end of the world had occurred and now, years later, here they are. Laughing.  _ Laughing. _ When they swore they would never learn to do so much as breathe again.

Her cheeks feel hot.

Time was made to heal all wounds.

Mikasa parts her lips, and Eren’s eyes flick down to watch them, watch her, draw out the words she’s about to say when she chooses to say nothing, as she so often does, closing her mouth and smiling once more, smiling softly. Her smile. Her eyes. They could turn any man into a believer, for only a deity could produce a masterpiece as flawless as she is. Eren, carved from the bowels of a harsh, ugly world, bears the scars that tell the truth of his misfortunes, the calluses and features that gradually sharpened from enduring the anvil of his harsh life. But Mikasa, although as brittle and troubled as he and just as frail, just as broken, is as perfect as a clump of virgin snow: untouched, unmarred. An angel. And Eren has always called her that. Even now, with that scar on her cheek and that ring on her finger and that makeup that he knows Hitch had to put on her for hours, she is winged, haloed, marvelous. The only hero in his sky.

A few more minutes, and Mikasa pulls her curls up into a neat bun, which most likely kills them. He eyes the flurry of activity behind her head. In a flash, she’s done, and a tendril of hair falls out to the front of her face, which they both notice immediately. She gives a frustrated huff, and without thinking, Eren reaches out and tucks the lock behind her ear, fingertips brushing her cheek, clinging to the smoothness of her skin, the curve of her earlobe, the soft hairs that curl up around it. And they know, the two of them, that this, right here, right now, is wrong. But they don’t care. Flushed, Mikasa thanks him, and he goes all serious, swallowing down the apology that sits heavy on his tongue—because he truly is sorry, but he truly is not, and if there was a word that perfectly described being while not being, loving while not loving, accepting while not accepting what they have, it would be the definition of Eren’s life. For he knows he loves her. For he knows, deep down, that he can’t. 

Still, the hope arises, a small flickers of light among the darkness of the night. God, please, let him love her. Can’t you see that it’s his fate? Can’t you see that he is not alive unless she’s near? Why, God, must he endure this torture? He hurts. Everywhere. He aches to hold her, feel her breath stealing across the sweep of his neck, her fingers in his hair, her palms over eyes that have seen too much, too much, and are so damn tired. Eren sighs, locking away the overwhelming feelings. He must love, live, and act quietly. For her, for her. For her, he must, he can, he will do it.

They are the only two people in the room. They do not speak, but the silence is welcome. They are alone, despite the hollering noise and laughter around them. Eren has read books of how lovers can meet in bustling places, and how the force of their gravities pulling into each other washes out the rest of the world, how some are capable of making love through crowded rooms with just their eyes, and even though they are no longer an item, there is no denying it for him that with this woman, that is the case. It always has been, and something in him says, hopes, that it always will be too. Because she’s the one. She’s—  

“Annie!”

Fuck.

Eren jumps. Mikasa frowns, then turns her head to follow the line of his gaze. A small blonde sporting ripped jeans and a leather jacket, with eyes even bluer than Eren’s, stands by the door. Everyone explodes into greeting. Everyone but him.

“Lionheart!” they cheer. “Finally!”

“I’ve told you thirty times, that is not my last name.” 

Mikasa swallows.

Her voice is like gravel rasping to fine flakes of dust. The mere sound of her words makes her seem to grow in stature. Her presence is mighty. She is lithe, fierce. Heard. Felt. Resonating. Her hair, spills of sunlight, curls back into a messy bun at the lower half of the back of her head, wisps of gold fanning carelessly out the flaxen cluster. There is not a tinge on makeup on her face, and still she is effortlessly stunning. Every small inch of her screams intimidation—even the brace around her wrist. There is not a hair of weakness on her body. Everything about her oozes hard, cold strength. 

“Your girlfriend’s here,” Mikasa comments dumbly. Eren sighs.

“Yeah.” He’s frowning. At what, or why, she doesn’t know. But then his gaze grows softer, and he turns to her and says, “Wanna meet her?”

“Ah…” 

“Perfect! ‘Cause she’s coming over.”

_ Shit. _

Annie makes a beeline to where they stand, nodding once at her boyfriend (some greeting, that) and then blinking slowly at the gawking girl beside him.

“Annie,” Eren clears his throat, “this is…” he pauses, not because he has forgotten her name, but because he has forgotten how to say it without weaving himself through every syllable. “Mikasa,” he finishes slowly, carefully. “She’s that old friend I told you about.”

“Nice to meet you, Annie.”

“Likewise.”

And they say no more. 

Mikasa sips on her water, peering at the small woman over the rim of the cup. Next to Eren, Annie looks almost scary. Her eyes are so calm that they seem bored, but take in everything with sharp, keen flicks of primal instinct. Her blinks are almost apathetic. In fact, all of her motions seem apathetic, as if she set her body on auto-pilot, too careless to put in the effort to take on full flight. She's a fighter though. The sprained wrist, the look in her eyes, the sharp, slightly crooked shape of her nose all profess this. The same way a dancer dances, the fighter fights: with every step, breath, and beat of their hearts. In that, they are very much alike. Both seem like women who have been built not by their choices, but by the circumstances of their lives.

Onyx eyes shift to teal-greens. 

Eren freezes, pinned by her studious gaze.

Is this it? Is that what moving on for them has been like? Jean is like him in many ways, it doesn’t take a genius to know that, and just looking at Annie is enough to know that she holds a lot of resemblance to Mikasa as well. It seems that in moving on, they simply found one another. All over again. And then again. Because that's what breaking up is. It's called that because you break away from the other person, and a piece of you is left behind with them, a piece of them latched onto you forever, the broken edges never to fit the same way ever again. “Breaking” for Eren and Mikasa has been not just learning to live on their own, but finding each other in other people. 

How sad.

“Eren,” Annie utters, swiping her long bangs away from her eyes. “I’m gonna go hang out with the others.” She gives him a look that says  _ aren’t you coming? _

He hesitates.

“Uh…” Mikasa catches on to the way his eyes flitter to her then away, almost reluctant. “Yeah, sure. See ya, Mikasa.”

Annie nods. “‘Kay.” And leaves with him.

He looks back. 

Mikasa is left alone to stare, and wonder how in the world it is that her hands are shaking.

**—o—**

Shots are gross.

“Take another one, Mikasa!”

So, so gross.

**—o—**

Grey Goose? Nasty. 

Jack Daniel’s? Barf.

Bacardi? Disgusting.

And none of them get her drunk. None. 

She grumbles, sinking deeper into the couch she sits on, gawking at the dancing whirls of people and ignoring Hitch when she implies that Annie got her broken wrist from (pumping motion with a clenched fist). You know what she means.

**—o—**

It’s hot. 

She groans, undoing two buttons on her cardigan. Just two.

Her head feels light, yet too heavy for her neck to carry. 

She stands.

“Come on, bitch! Dance with me!” That’s intoxicated Hitch asking her to dance to cacophonous rap with some angry, spitting verse cut rudely right in the middle. This isn’t music. It’s knives drilling slowly into her skull.

Incredibly enough, Mikasa allows herself to be whisked away into the makeshift dance floor.

_ Where’s Eren?  _ a voice in her head wonders.

The girls gather around her, whooping and shoving for her to move. 

She closes her eyes.

Feels the music in her bones, her heart. Lets it shake her.

And for the first time in a very, very long time, she does what she was born to do. 

Dances.

And thinks: _ Who cares? _

**—o—**

He doesn’t speak to her again until there’s a thin sheet of sweat sticking small hairs to the nape of her neck. She slithers in right beside him, the taste of beer going stale on his tongue. And Annie’s gone to hang with the girls, and the guys all whoop and shout around a vigorous game of beer pong, and Mikasa singles him out, deems him worthy of her sweaty, splendid presence.

Her bun’s a mess.

She’s still wearing that cardigan, despite the heat. 

She sighs, pulling a lock of hair from her cheek. 

“Hey, stranger.” 

She’s beautiful.

Eren’s heart screams.

“Hey,” he smirks, side-eyeing her. She’s massaging her ankle, still in her heels. “How goes it?”

“Great,” she huffs, fanning herself. Her cheeks are flushed. “I just danced.”

“I saw.”

“I hadn’t done that in… in…”

“Ages?”

“Yes!”

“Ha,” Eren chuckles, scratching his neck. “So, you’re having fun, at least?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good. I don’t have to hurt anybody?”

“Nuh-uh. Everyone’s been very kind to me—even Ymir!”

Eren smiles. “Someday, she’ll bother to learn your real name.”

“Meh,” shrugs Mikasa, “I always wanted to be Mufasa anyway.”

He laughs, and she smiles to herself, smoothing her hands down the skirt of her shimmering dress. Her eyes find the cup in his hand. She questions, “Beer?”

“Yep,” Eren nods mid-slurp. “Want some?”

“No. Jaeger bomb. Whatever it is, I want one.”

“Hold up.” Brunet eyebrows dart right up. “You do?”

“Mhm.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. Eren,” and she looks deep into his eyes and says, “Jaeger Bomb me.”

He scoffs, terribly turned on.

Oh sweet mother of fucking “YMIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“WHAT!!!!”

“BOMB!!!!”

“How many?!”

“A LOT!!!”

“Bruh! FUCK YEAH!!!!!”

They have an odd way of interacting, those two. 

Ymir hops over the counter a la drunken parkour, meaning that she doesn’t land right. As in, she just doesn’t land. The poor thing, she whisks onto the ground, vanishing behind the bulk of some furniture. 

“Whoo!” She scrambles to her feet, straightening her jacket. “I’m fine, I’m good. Nothing happened.” 

Jesus.

“Drink with me,” she tells him, and Eren has to breathe, because he’s heard her say those words and those are words he has been dreaming to hear all fucking night and maybe he holds his breath because he knows he’s crashing, maybe, yes, but maybe he does so the same way planes do before their bodies meet the ground and they become part of the lands they so ardently admired from afar, the same way that Eren, poor, poor Eren, willingly crashes into her.

“You’re sure,” he smirks.

“Yes.”

And he loves her too much to turn her down. “Alright, but just so you know, I’m buzzed already.”

“Me too.” Oh, so that’s the color on her cheeks, then. Mild intoxication.

Eren grins. 

He’s drinking with Mikasa Ackerman.

Mikasa Ackerman. Drunk.

“Oh, this is too good to be true.”

“Shh. It’s only for tonight.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining.”

“Can I have a sip of that?”

“Mikasa.”

“What?”

“Don’t go crazy.”

“Ah,” she sighs, undoing the buttons of her cardigan. “Too late.”

Eren’s eyes drop to her dress, and at least he has the mind to conceal his guiltless staring, sinking his face into the cup and swallowing the remainder of his beer. When the cardigan falls down her arms and she takes her heels off, complaining quietly of the pain, she’s suddenly an entire foot shorter, a shade brighter, a hue more colorful than the rest of the room. She frees her hair from her bun, and it falls in long, silken tresses, the length of which he has never seen them be before. In ways, she’s new to him, a foreign body returning from the dance floor, but in so many, many more ways, she’s still his map, his guide to life, the being he’s memorized from countless hours spent marveling. Her dress is too tight, and he knows her well enough to understand that the only way she’s even letting him see her like this is because of liquid courage, for only a tipsy Mikasa would sacrifice an ounce of her conservative air. Her breasts huddle close so that a slit the size of a pin needle stand out to him, and her humble curves scream provocatively through the redness of the fabric of her dress. He realizes that he has been here so many times before: Mikasa in a dress, lost, excited, gorgeous, perpetually and inexplicably sad, trying something she usually never would have. It’s like the night they met all over again, after bumping into each other in the street. Except that now, instead of lewd or haunting thoughts, his mind prefers to study her, a sign of conscious growth. 

She’s amazing, this girl. Even now, so brave. Eren doesn’t care how weak she thinks herself to be. She’s the most admirable being in his eyes, and he’s so fucking glad that she’s back in his life. Red dress, no shoes, pink cheeks… all her. All Mik. His Miki, All she needs now is chocolate. And perhaps a jaeger bomb or two.

“Mikasa.” She perks up at the sound of her name. “After this shot, you wanna do something crazy?”

“Like what?”

“Dance with me.”

She stares at him. “Wh… What?”

“Dance. With me. Like we used to.”

Ymir arrives with their shots, setting them on the counter, chanting, “Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!” As the others join in as well.

Through the haze of noise and laughter, Mikasa looks at him, smiles, breathes:

“I’d love to.”

Then they drink. And he’s sixteen, no, seventeen again, asking the girl of his dreams to dance with him and smiling like a fool when she says yes. Smiling so hard even his dimple hurts. Smiling so much.  _ Smiling. _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your continuous support and feedback. You keep this story going, you really do.


	16. Drops of Blood On An Endless Ocean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot believe how much I missed writing the past chapters. Please excuse any typos or rough ends on this chapter. I wanted it to be as honest as possible, and thus edits/corrections were very little to none.

**** What is loneliness? For a long time, Eren thought the answer to this question was rather simple. He sees now that he’d been wrong, for loneliness does not come with the simplicity of being alone. In fact, being lonely and being alone are two different things, like what fire is to ice and what Eren is to Armin and Mikasa. So different, in fact, that they could be opposites.

Opposites. After Mom died, Eren began to find lots of these. He also found that things he thought contrasted one another, like happiness and sadness, are very much alike. He discovered what true loneliness is, for he was surrounded by people, and yet the void inside was so big, so consuming, it swallowed any minute sense of company or safety granted by the warm spirits by his side. 

Without Mommy, everything is empty. Laughter is empty. Music is empty. What once were bloated, heavy things, became hollow and weightless. Empty. Empty. So much emptiness. In the principal’s office, accompanied by his frowning father, with the school nurse wrapping his bloodied hand in bandages as the other held an ice pack to his busted lip, he felt, and was, not alone, but incredibly lonely. The principal and his dad were going on about what happened, the consequences that were to be ensured, the severity of his wounds and how to treat them. 

Can they fix his heart instead?

Eren wondered, sighing.

Nope. Nothing could fix him.

He looked up. Dust lace hung from the ceiling. In the particles, he searched for Mom. She would know what to do, what to say to him, how to calm down Dad. But she’s gone, and Eren is lonely, and he closed his eyes because they stung with tears and Dad always taught him that men don’t cry, they swallow up their emotions and let them gnaw at their hearts instead.

“Eren.”

He was twelve, and lonely, and not alone, but so damn lonely.

“Eren Jaeger.”

He thought of Mikasa and Armin, how they try and try and try to help and yet… And yet… 

“Eren!”

“What?!” he snapped, clenching an aching fist. His father sighed sadly at his tone, too tired to reprimand him.

“You understand,” droned the principal, pushing his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose, “that this is your second fight this week. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to suspend you.”

“For how long?” Doctor Grisha worried. He worried often, for he’s never home, and he had no friends, no family, no relations that could help him raise his delinquent of a son. “He’d be on his own at home, I’m sure you understand that. Can’t he spend his days in detention instead?”

Eren groaned in disgust for two reasons. One, he’d rather kiss Sarah Hale on the lips (a grotesque punishment, that) than spend his days in detention. And two, his father, the great Grisha Jaeger, was not asking, but begging. Eren hated it when he begged. He looked so weak and clad in desperation. Mom would hate it too. 

Mom would hate what both of them have become, actually.

The school nurse, Mr. Hannes, placed his hand on the top of Eren’s head, signaling his goodbye. Eren peered up at him through bangs that had grown too long, and the two said nothing. Hannes, the male school nurse, was once in the military, was given a dishonorable leave, spent a big chunk of his life battling alcoholism, and lost his children and wife to an ambiguous accident. He’d been through a lot, and he understood Eren, accepted him, never yelled or scolded him, only listened. That’s why he went out of his way to wrap his wounds outside of the nurse’s office, and why he sometimes let Eren take naps on the nursing beds when he should’ve been in class because the noisy students made him anxious. He was deeply flawed, but a good man.

So they said nothing, and then Hannes left, and the only link of sanity Eren had in him severed. The principal passed the verdict: an entire week suspended from school, and Dad looked like he could cry. Eren looked away. Men don’t cry, he told himself. Men don’t cry. To some sick, twisted degree, men aren’t even human. 

Monsters. Monsters are what ate Eren up inside. Always. They’re always there, rumbling and roaring and fighting to break free. And they do. God, they do. They manifest as fists and kicks and bloody lips and purple eyes and swollen cheeks and raw, deep red trickling down his fingers. That’s what his demons were. Anger, anxiety, sadness, violence. Often times, he did a good job of keeping them hidden. But then a kid in class would provoke him, say he was the son of a woman that “probably tastes like _ grave _ ” and then the ugliness would break free, and Eren was no longer a man, no longer human. He was what his father and the principal treated him as, with scorn twisting their lips and disdain coloring their eyes, hissing:

_ Monster. _

**—o—**

In his dreams, Mom is happy. 

And so is he. They’re together, sharing a slice of fresh pineapple—her favorite fruit. Eren never did like pineapple much, but Mommy loved it, so he told himself that he did too. She tells him about her day, which usually consisted of lots of sleeping and amusing books and TV shows. Eren made a mental note to read all these books, and watch all these shows, and chomp down all the pineapple in the world if it meant finding his mother. But then came the rude awakening, the sleepy smile that faded from his lips and the eyes that shot wide open to find his bedroom ceiling and not a single trace of Mom.

Reality hurt. Reality hurt so, so much that Eren was convinced simply being alive would someday kill him.

He didn’t know how he did it, but somehow, he lived his life without his mother. The afternoons where Mikasa would appear at his doorstep with a smirk and his homework in her hands helped assuage his agony, for the girl’s simple presence was a relief to him in itself.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she told him one afternoon after he’d awoken from his third or fourth nap of the day. “I got your schoolwork. Mr. Hannes says hi. Armin also.”

“Where is he?” Eren asked, stepping aside so that she could enter. 

“Studying. Big test coming up. You know the drill.”

Ah, yes. That he did. Armin was his best friend, but when it came to schoolwork, Eren always came in second. It annoyed him to no end. “Mik,” he sighed, running a hand through his bedhead. “Can I ask you something?”

Mikasa straightened from the coffee table, where she’d set his homework down. When she turned to face him, Eren noticed a freckle on her cheek he had never caught before. The dwindling sun crept in through the windows, sighing around her frame, caressing her gentle features and setting tendrils of her hair ablaze in red, fiery light. He felt a funny feeling in his belly, then was quick to shoo it away.

He sat down on the sofa, and Mikasa followed suit. Her body sunk into the cushion beside him, nearly pulling him to her end. But he cleared his throat and scooted away a little bit, so that there was a comfortable space between them. The girl blinked slowly, and Eren still couldn’t help but catch all the little things about her that had surfaced with the passing of time. He thought of how his mother would compliment her on her long hair, remark on how beautifully it fell down past her shoulders in glossy spills she always pulled back, but how that single lock of hair that always fell to her forehead was too stubborn to be contained, how she should cherish the minor imperfection. Her chin had grown sharper and smaller, eyelashes even longer, nose pointier and lips more glossy than before. Two subtle swells began to form beneath her blouses, and Eren had once overheard Mrs. Ackerman complaining about having to purchase bras for a daughter that was growing far too quickly. It’d made him laugh, but now, all these changes weren’t all that funny. He wondered how much he had changed himself, and couldn’t help but feel a pang of pain that his mother would never be there to witness his freckles growing sparse and his new braces and how his eyes changed from a bright green to a softer blue.

“Eren,” came Mikasa’s voice, a whisper of calm in the calamity of his own mind. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he assured her, watching her frown.

“What did you have to ask me?”

“Do you have ballet today?”

“No, today’s Tuesday.”

“Would you go to our bench with me?”

“Our bench?”

“Yeah, the grandpa bench. Let’s go.”

“Eren,” Mikasa said, placing a hand on his shoulder to stop him from standing. “You have homework.”

“It can wait.”

“No.”

He groaned. “Stop coddling me.”

Mikasa blinked, expressionless. “I am not coddling you.”

“You are too!”

“I’m doing what’s best for you.”

“Right now, I need a friend, not a mom.”

“I am your friend.”

“Then act like it!”

“Don’t shout at me.”

“I’m not shouting.”

“You’re shouting.”

“Oh my fucking—” royally annoyed, Eren plopped himself back on the sofa. “You know what? Forget it. Forget I ever asked.”

There was silence.  

Scarcely anything brought Eren any peace, but Mikasa did, and when she didn’t, like right now, his heart frenzied. He sighed, run his fingers through his hair, bit his lip, bounced his leg up and down and it was then that he began to feel the monsters, the sadness and anxiety and pain all creep up and into him, where they took root and burned and cooked him and—

Mikasa placed a hand on his thigh, stalling it. “Alright,” she breathed, a tender look in her eyes. “The grandpa bench it is.”

**—o—**

They didn’t go to their bench. Instead, they trespassed the giant willow tree behind it and ventured into the woods, until they found their meadow, a vast plane of hilly grass unperturbed by trees but littered by thorny rose bushes that permeated the air with their scent whenever the breeze felt like blowing a bit too strongly. The sun set among the hills until all that was left was the remnants of its gorgeous light: soft pinks and blues and purples that made the sky seem like a Van Gogh painting. If Eren’s arms were long enough to reach the clouds, they’d paint his fingertips with iridescent ink, and those would spill from his hands like gilded tears, following the paths of past bloodshed. 

This little plot of land is where they always went to stargaze. Armin was the one that discovered it a couple of years back, and looking at the stars without him felt almost like treachery. But Eren needed the stars that day. He needed them, with Mikasa by his side. Only Mikasa.

They laid on their backs, and waited until the first few specks of white peeked through the cotton candy sky. The sun left, the moon waltzed right in, and Heaven became a back ocean, teeming with bright, flickering fish. Some remained exactly where they were, others swam across with lightning speed, carrying wishes the two twelve-year-olds were far too embarrassed to voice aloud. 

Eren wished for his mom.

Mikasa wished for more time with Eren.

They both closed their eyes, sealed their wishes to the sky. One of them sent their hopes to God, the other—the non-believer—sent them to the cosmos, until there were so many he could no longer count them all. For a quiet moment, they found a sliver of peace. They said nothing.

Until: “Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you fight so much?”

He was quiet, his eyes closed. “You gotta fight to win, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Well, that’s why.”

“Still, not everything is a war.”

“Can I ask you something, Mikasa?”

“Shoot.”

“Why do you love me?”

She was the one to go silent this time. She swallowed, blinking slowly. The stars burned above them, breathing in and out, matching the slow cadence of her lungs. In her silence, Mikasa reminisced. She thought of the last time Eren had asked her something similar, just before Carla died. He had asked if she loved him, and she had said yes. Peering at the stick-on, glow-in-the-dark plastic stars on his bedroom ceiling, she’d professed to love him the way that stars loved the moon. This love prevailed, remained unsoiled. But now, he was asking why.  _ Why do you love me? _

Well… 

“Why do you ask?”

Eren opened his eyes. He knew that what he was asking her to answer was unfair. One does not simply ask others why they love them, then expect a satisfying answer. Especially Mikasa, a girl of such few words. So he changed the topic, tore a gash in his being and let himself pour right out.

“I’m lost,” he told her candidly. “I feel so lost, Mikasa. So lonely.”

Her eyes on his were sad. “Eren…”

“I hate myself,” he sputtered quietly, suddenly unable to hold back. “I feel like I’m drowning. I hate that I live in this skin, that I breathe and think and stuff. I hate it, Mik. I don’t know what I’m feeling half the time but it’s so much that it drives me crazy. I hate it. I hate myself.”

This alarmed her. She rose on her elbows, peering through the darkness and into his eyes. “Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t speak like this, Eren. You are incredible.”

“No.”

“Yes! Look at me. Look at me, please.”

He did. Slowly, Mikasa fell back onto the grass. They both turned on their sides to face each other, the breeze blowing their hair, their clothes.

“From the moment I met you,” the girl said, her bangs swept all across her forehead. “I knew you would change my life. And you have. Please, don’t cry.”

He hadn’t realized that he was.

Eren sniffled, clearing his throat. He held still for a moment, waited the tears away. When he felt that they had left him, he opened his eyes again, looked at his best friend in the eyes and told her, “I’ve just… I’ve been thinking. The thing about people is… they get sick of you after a while. Haven't you noticed that? Every single person leaves eventually, so really, what's the point? Why do we even bother putting energy into relationships that won’t last? I mean, haven't you noticed that? It's all great until they see that they've got you, or they've gotten what they want from you, or there is nothing more you can do to further benefit them—so they toss you out like shit. Bye. Done. You wonder what you ever did wrong. Was it something you did? But you always fuck up, so it had to be. Aren't you enough for them anymore? Well, apparently you're not, and good luck finding out the reason for it too, because they never tell you'. No. And that's what's really heart breaking. When people get tired of you, when they leave, there's no grand ceremony to help you cope with the loss, like the funeral was for Mommy, even though it's a sort of death in a way, I think, because nothing returns to the way it was before. It's just so fucked up. You don't even get a warning, a notification. All you get is ignored, lack of communication from their part, and the simple reality that you just have to fucking deal with it. There's no goodbye. Just move on'. Because in the end, everything just means nothing. You mean nothing. Nobody cares. So why do you open up and bother to trust others? Can't you see they just don't give a shit? You think there's anyone out there genuinely interested in who you are, solely because you exist? No. That's all just a big fucking fairytale. People want what they can get out of you. That's it. And if you make the mistake of getting attached to them, well, that's your own damn problem. When you're crying yourself to sleep, aching for company, with not a soul by your side, you'll understand it. We are alone in this world. The only thing we'll always have is ourselves. Everything else just comes and goes.”

She was the one crying now. Her words were shallow breaths. “Where is all this coming from?”

“I’m crazy,” he breathed, tears bubbling all the way from his heart to the corners of his eyes. “I drive myself insane with my thoughts. I just take and take. I’m killing my father, I know it. And I killed Mom. I kill the people I love with who I am.”

“Have you told the therapist all this?”

“No.”

“You should,” the girl sniffled. Crying was such a normal thing between them. Like laughter and anger, just a mere show of emotion that brought forth no shame. “Maybe they can help you.” 

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“I don't mean it like that. I mean—”

“I know what you mean, Eren.” she husked seriously, a small rivulet coursing across the bridge of her nose. She sniffled, pronounced, “I love you. I've loved you all my life. At least, I can't imagine my life before you came into it. You've changed me for the better, and kept me company through the worst. You are my friend, my companion. And I love you, I do.”

Her hands found his face. She held him, thumbs wiping at his tears. Eren ached. He ached for a slice of heaven, for his mother’s touch, for hands he hadn’t felt in two years. But Mikasa was the closest thing to the sky that he’d been granted.

“You always know the right thing to say,” he smiled ironically, snot dripping from his nose.

Mikasa snorted, snot dripping from her nose too. They were a mess. A crying, snorting mess. “Well, not always.”

“Almost always.”

“That's good enough.”

Closing his eyes, Eren melted into her hands. He was hers, all hers. And something told him that she knew that. “I'm scared,” he whispered, and he was. God, he was. Fear latched onto him like a brand he could not take off.

“I am too,” the angel said, and this gave him consolation.

He was not alone.

“The world is so big, and I am so small. I'm scared, Mik. I feel so lonely.”

“But you will fight. And you will win. And I will fight with you. I will protect you, Eren. You are my family. You're not alone. Don't say that. I won’t get tired of you, I won’t leave you. You can always count on that.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Please, don't apologize.”

He smiled. “Okay.”

And that was when she kissed him.

Her lips on his were chaste, gossamer. Kisses on the lips were a grown-up thing, but they still did it. To Eren, it was mildly confusing at times. Did she do it because she liked him? Like,  _ like _ liked him? Was it something else that surfaced with the passing of time? He could’ve just asked, but he dared not to. Nothing could destroy the purity of that moment, not even his curiosity. And it often went like that: Eren and Mikasa escaped into their own little corner of the world and bled to one another, until exhausted vials were all that remained of their hearts. And what a relief it was to bleed. And bleed. And bleed. With her, he could be as ugly, as monstrous, as anxious and imperfect as he truly was to the core. And then they’d rise, dust the grass blades from their clothing, and amble on into the night, hand-in-hand, spirit-within-spirit. He’d walk her home, and then return to his bedroom, flip off the lights, and fall asleep with the day’s clothes still on, the taste of her lips glowing on the tip of his busted, bloody mouth, the elixir to his wounds, the remedy that glued his jagged pieces back together. The sun would rise the next morning, the hours would tick away on the clock, the air would slip into his lungs as life pumped through his veins, and like a never-ending flame, he burned, burned, burned.

**—o—**

Eren healed. Slowly. 

  
  
  
  



	17. Pleasure’s All Mine (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would do unspeakable things to be able to dance like this with Eren Jaeger. Sighs.

**** Everything is blue. 

His eyes. The lights. His jeans. And then deteriorating colors manifest to a red as intense as her dress, her cheeks, her lips, and they fill his vision like the liquid that brims his shot glass and sears a path down his throat. 

Gray smoke and pearl smiles and lilac fingernails invade the crimson tint that colors his eyes—and everything is bright, and great, and… no, fucking  _ amazing _ . The rosy tip of her tongue peeks out and sweeps along the soft plush of her bottom lip, a cushion she’s quick to sink her teeth into. “Come on,” breathes the colorful lisp of her voice, and his hand melts into hers, rearranging itself to fit her palm like a puzzle. They reach the makeshift dance floor, and then her touch tears from him so painfully he swears she takes a layer of his skin. But she makes up for it with the look in her eyes, the intoxicated grin that splits to exclaim, “Dance with me!”

He’s drunk. He knows because he laughs a nuance louder than usual. Though he does not know whether alcohol is entirely at fault. For all he knows, to be guided by the spirited bouncing of his heart, and to marvel at the night sky eyes etched on her face, is the true cause of this tipsy glory.

They dance. 

Somehow, without tripping over the other. Halfway through, he decides that she’s drunk too. She  _ has _ to be. A sober Mikasa wouldn’t be this carefree or—he daresay—this adventurous. A safe distance towers sturdily between them, but she’s the one to unroot it from the ground with a single whispered word: “Closer.” His friends all dance and sway around him in a tangle of swinging arms and twirling bodies, and even Annie joins them in their drunken cavort. But when Mikasa laughs, like she’s been doing so, so much lately, and prowls close enough that he can smell her perfume, nobody else exists, only the colors she’s emitting and the alcohol that sparks through him and ignites every atom, every hair, every aspect of his being. 

He feels himself swivel, directionless, a compass that spins until she forces him to land, for she grabs his hands and pulls him to her, turns so that her back is at his chest. He gasps at the contact, wonders if she can feel his heart pounding at her spine, feel the blood rushing through his veins and washing through his body like waves that stretch to caress her sweltering skin. Their bodies move together so splendidly that Eren wants to cry. He’d feel pain or guilt if he wasn’t so damn happy. She guides his hands to her hips, where they anchor for what he hopes is all eternity, but as if they have a mind of their own, they move up. Up. Up. Up. She throws her head to the side and he feels her waist, ribcage, arms—they fly up, fling themselves behind his neck—and he thinks of how the sculptor sculpts, how every ridge and bump and conscientious curve produce his masterpiece, and it’s as if Mikasa molds herself to fit into his hands, the way that figurines carve themselves out from the mind of an artist. The work of art laughs, and she’s so out of it, but so is he, and after all those jaeger bombs, who can blame them? His breath steals across the sweep of her neck, eyes catching flickers of her jaw, and for a second—just a second—there is no engagement, no past or future, no Hitch or Jean or Annie. Only this. Only his hands grasping at the stranger he knows so well, her happy little giggle before she spins to face him, peer up into his eyes. 

Seconds pass and the beat of the music pounds at the walls around their hearts. She stops smiling. Eren realizes that he’s stopped too. Swirling lights swim across her features, illuminating shadows he swears weren’t there before. Is she frowning? Is she sad? Scared? No. No. Eren marvels at her bravery, the feeling of her dress lingering in his hands, staining his fingertips like a kiss they long to taste longer. That pesky tendril of hair falls over her face again, and he sweeps it behind her ear once more, only this time he is not sorry. Like a fool, the fool he is, he looks into her eyes even though he knows they’re made to kill him. Steely gaze falls to his mouth, cutting through fog and smoke to reach him. It isn’t until he feels her breath on his lips that he realizes his hand cups one side of her face, that he’s leaned in to breathe her in. 

Then he hesitates.

And she doesn’t move.

Her glassy eyes become too heavy, flutter shut. She tilts her head up, exhales, and he dips to move closer, fall into her. He respires, intoxicated lungs contracting with every breath, and she smells so nice, like Chanel No. 5 and sweat and happiness. She looks like a dream. She feels like ecstasy, a pleasure so divine he needs to close his eyes to savor it. Drunk, content, drowsy, his lips crawl a breath away from hers and he’s surprised she hasn’t shied away yet. Instead, amazingly, she holds still. He wonders if she’s even breathing. And he was born for this, for this very moment. To hold her, to feel her, to be glad and wasted and full of drunken jubilee and no regrets, only love, only so, so much love for this gorgeous, sweaty being that holds still and—

“Mufasa!”

She jumps away, gasping.

“Mufasa! Your husband’s here!”

“Husband?” She breathes, eyes wide. Sweat sticks threads of her hair to the side of her neck. Her chest heaves, sinking her cleavage. “He’s here?”

Eren tenses, cheeks aflame.

“Jean,” says the woman he nearly kissed.

“I see him,” says the woman who didn’t turn her head away.

“Eren,” says the woman who might have let him kiss her, whose face is still in his hands. “Will you meet him?”

No. No, no, no. He closes his eyes, lets his hand wilt away from her like a dying flower. He— _ they _ —had felt so alive. And now, the sadness that’d been shooed away by alcohol resurfaces, a cold spike impaling the inflated joy of his heart. It wheezes, deflating with an exhausted sigh.

“Sure,” he voices despite himself, because her eyes are pleading and god, he cannot bring himself to refuse them. “Sure, why not?”

“Come on.” Her hands capture his, and he fights the urge to drag her away, to run and run and run until the distance between her and this Jean is unfathomable even to the sea. Unapologetic, he lets her pull him away and stares at her ass, smirking to himself when he thinks he’s gawked long enough for Jean to notice. He hasn’t met him yet—or ever seen him—but he’s already intent on making his life a living hell.

But then she lets go of his hand.

To embrace her fiancé.

And Eren realizes what he’s thinking, and what a selfish, selfish ass he is. But to watch the woman he loves throw her arms around another man and hold him is to burn alive. He’s dead, but somehow walking, pausing just a mere two feet away from the happy, stupid couple. He seethes with envy, so much so that he feels the emotion crawl all the way up to the tips of his ears. He hates the man. He hates, hates so much now.

Mikasa stumbles into Jean, and he gives a surprised cry. His voice in Eren’s ears is like nails on a chalkboard. It makes him cringe. And he does. Visibly.

“Hey, baby,” says the man. “Having fun?”

“Oh, yes,” she croons, releasing him. “So much fun.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“You’re drunk.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Holy shit, ‘Kasa! You’re drunk, baby!” 

“Hush,” she hiccups, excusing herself. “Shush it, you.”

Eren rolls his eyes so strongly he gets dizzy. 

“Eren.”

He jumps. 

“This is my fiancé.” Lazy hand sweep between them: “Jean.”

“Ah, Eren,” says the dude, with a wide-ass smirk and an offering hand. “Your brother, is he not?”

Eren frowns, his cheeks burning hotter. “Excuse me?”

“Jean thinks he’s funny,” Mikasa interjects, giving her fiancé a stern look. 

“I’m only kidding,” he smiles, “I love messing with her.”

“Is that right?”

Awkward silence. 

Eren sees Mikasa tense.

Begrudgingly, for her, he takes Jean’s hand.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he slurs, tasting the sour lie.

“Likewise,” smiles the stranger. “It’s good to finally meet one of her, er… friends.”

“I bet.”

“How long have you two known each other?”

_ Long enough for me to take her virginity.  _ “Some time.”

“For years,” says Mikasa. “We go way back.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“How nice.” 

“Isn’t it?” Eren grins. Suddenly, Jean squeezes his hand. It startles him. Green eyes flare wide momentarily, and a challenging look hardens in the stranger’s gaze. Mikasa doesn’t see, so Eren narrows his vision, glaring at the man.

“Why don’t you go get your stuff, baby?” he orders her. 

Blinking slowly, she nods. “Be right back.” Then she’s gone.

Eren sniffles, clearing his throat, wiping his hands on his jeans. 

“That’s quite a grip you’ve got on you,” says Jean, nodding at his scarred hands. “What do you do?”

“Martial arts,” Eren murmurs, clearing his throat. “I box too.”

“How nice.”

“How about you?”

“Do you really care to know?”

“Nope. Not really.”

“Well, that does it, then.”

“Yup.”

“How do you know Mikasa?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Are you having a hard time answering them?”

“Not at all.”

“Then I’m sure you can answer pretty well. You  _ do _ know this is her first time drunk, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re drunk. High, too, I would presume.”

“Oh, yeah,” he chuckles. “Like a kite.”

“How charming.”

“You’d know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

Jean laughs. “You’re an interesting one, Eren.”

He mumbles, “Thanks.” 

“Someday,” sighs the man, fiddling with his wristwatch. His eyes are toneless, blank. “I will understand what it is that draws her so much to you.”

“Well, you’re going to marry her,” smirks Eren, running a hand through his hair. He can still feel Mikasa’s body lost in his, her nails scraping lightly at the back of his scalp, carving paths into his skin he isn’t sure will ever fade now. Realizing only a fraction of the severity of what had just occurred, of what is still occurring, he tests, “It’d be best to figure it out soon.”

Jean’s jaw tightens. He flexes his hand, and Eren swallows, for those very palms have touched Mikasa countless times he could not—and cannot ever—control, soiled the flawless expanse of her skin. “Do me a favor,” he says, staring into him. Ardent gazes smolder one another. “Watch over her. Protect her, while I can’t. Please.”

Eren opens his mouth. No words come out. 

“I…” Fuck. He can feel himself coming down from his high, eyes falling to his feet. “I will. Always.”

“Good.” And with that, their conversation ends.

“I’m ready,” the girl finally appears, swinging her purse over her shoulder. “Thanks for tonight, Eren. I had fun.”

He gives a dimple-less smile. “Me too.” 

With his hand by the small of her back, Jean guides her away, whispering, “Let’s go, baby,” into her ear loud enough that Eren can hear. He hates how he calls her baby, how he holds her and whisks her away.

He hates him.

And he shouldn’t. He’s done nothing to him. He has just as much freedom, as much right to love Mikasa.

But he hates him.

And then she looks back over her shoulder to wave, a tipsy smile dusting her lips.

And Jean does too, but to stare at him.

_ Watch over her,  _ his eyes echo.  _ Protect her, while I can’t. Please. _

_ Always _ , sighs Eren’s heart, surrendering.  _ Always. _

“What was that?” says a voice behind him. It’s Reiner.

“Nothing,” Eren murmurs, the music swallowing his words. “It’s nothing.”

“You two looked like you were gonna, like…” his friend trails off, groggy eyes swimming. “Heh,” he chuckles, taking a sip of his drink, “I’d rather not say.”

“Reiner.” Determined eyes dig into drunken, hazy ones. “Give me a shot.”

“Of what?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Aren’t you drunk already?”

“Not drunk enough.”

“Did that man shake you up so much you need to get plastered now?”

“Shut up.” He doesn’t understand. Reiner doesn’t love anyone the way that Eren does, he’s not a victim of this condition, this disease. He’s lucky, unplagued by the hell that is loving Mikasa Ackerman. Tonight, he held her, nearly kissed her, then lost her just like that. His heart aches, wails, so he means to hush it with whatever he can get his hands on.

In this case, it’s alcohol.

“Alright,” his friend capitulates. Eren can tell that he's reluctant, but he moves to the makeshift bar all the same. Soon, shots are being poured and glasses are clinking, toasts are voiced and necks stretch with heads that tilt all the way back, throats swallowing every last drop hungrily.

To love, they’d saluted. To love. 

**—o—**

For her first time being drunk, Mikasa is doing extremely well. (Or, at least, this is what she tells herself.)

She’s walking straight. Jean says she’s not, but honestly, who even asked him? His chuckles make her hiccup the occasional giggle or two, and not only is everything funnier when you’re drunk, but your body feels light yet too heavy to carry simultaneously. It’s like she’s floating while remaining planted on the ground. To be intoxicated, she philosophies, is to find the perfect equilibrium between two opposite extremes. 

In her vague and somewhat limited experience, she has come to understand that there are five types of drunks in this world: the happy drunks, the sad drunks, the angry drunks, the philosophical drunks, and the horny drunks.

You won’t believe which one she is.

With a bravery she summons from Lord-knows-where, she throws herself at her fiancé the moment their apartment door shuts, locking it behind him and crashing their lips together before he even has a chance to take off his coat. 

“Babe,” he pants after a moment, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She closes her eyes, remembers how Eren had done the same. “You’re hella drunk.”

She smiles sleepily, whispering a small laugh, “I know,” then kisses him again. It’s so relieving when he kisses back. With just as much heat, as much want. She can’t remember the last time they had sex, and her drunken mind tells her that she fucking deserves it.

Her feet nearly trip over her own coat on the floor, but Jean catches her, pulling her close, bunching the skirt of her dress in his hands, which makes it ride up her legs—and she finds this very funny.

“Is it yours?” He questions through her titters.

“Nope. Hitch’s.”

“Who’s Hitch?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

They kiss again, and when his hands cup her rear and his fingers contract, denting her ass cheeks, she feels herself sighing, hears her own moan get lost between his teeth. He’s kissing down her neck, framing her ribcage with his hands when she turns her head to whisper in his ear, ask him to make her his. And he doesn’t object. Her eyes roll back when her back meets the sofa and he kisses the tops of her breasts, the dress rucked up around her waist as he creeps a hand between her legs. It’s when  his head is between them and she’s arching that she thinks to prompt him further. He’s the Jean she loves and remembers, strong and forceful and daring, and he teases her, tonguing softly through her panties and smiling brightly when she whimpers his name.

He moves to suckle at the insides of her thighs, and she lets her eyes close, images of the night flickering behind her eyelids. Red and blue lights flood her vision, then transform into a bluish green she knows only to belong to Eren’s eyes. Sighing, feeling her fiancé suck a hickey onto her skin, she delves into the colors, swims, feels rough hands carved around one side of her face, the sweet smell of his breath on her lips, how she’d longed to taste it, a name sitting heavily on her tongue. 

_ Eren. _

It’s the most beautiful name in the world. She could say it all night. She could paint the entire sky with just one utterance, one. Tipsy on the remnants of his presence, she smiles, heaves through thin lungs and parts her lips to call for him, her roaming hands reaching out to—

“What?”

Suddenly, she realizes that Jean has paused to gape at her. His question echoes in the air.

“What?” Mikasa raises her head, blinking down at her fiancé. “What is it?”

“What did you just say?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just…”

“What?”

“Did you just…?”

“What, Jean?”

“...call me Eren?”

She blanches. “I… What?”

“You just called me Eren.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then what did—?”

“Air,” she deadpans, clearing her throat. “Window. Air. Open the window and let the _ air in _ . That’s what I said.”

“Um.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m…”

“Jean,” she sits, pouting, pulling at his pants. “I’m hot. Open the window. Take my clothes off.” She can feel herself swaying, her fiancé’s hands trying to steady her, failing. “Please,” she breathes, or slurs rather, whining: “Make love to me.”

He squints his eyes at her.

Two seconds pass.

And then: “No.”

She gasps, “What?”

“Honey,” Jean sighs, clutching her shoulders so that she doesn’t fall back, “there’s nothing I would want more, but you’re so out of it. I can’t take advantage of you like that.”

“But, but, but I…” she stammers, flabbergasted. “But you have my full consent!”

“Drunken consent.”

“So?”

“Nope. Won’t do it.”

“Jean!”

“A good man doesn’t take advantage of his drunken fiancée, no matter how hot she looks in her red dress. Come on.” He curves his hands underneath her, scooping her up off the sofa with a soft groan.

“Jean,” she objects weakly, melting into his arms, “but I want—”

“Shhh, it’s time for bed. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

She frowns. “Poopie.”

Jean kisses the top of her head before placing her gently on their mattress. She sinks into the bed, and he commences to undress her. “Up,” he asks her. “Arms up.” Soon, she’s sitting completely naked. On their bed. Watching as he ignores her and searches through her cabinets for her pj’s. Unfamiliar with where she keeps her stuff, he settles for giving her one of his own shirts instead, sighing sadly when she refuses to put it on.

“‘Kasa,” he frowns, sitting on the bed by her feet. “You have to get dressed.”

She pouts. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Miki…” 

“Jean.”

“What?”

“I’m naked.”

“I know.”

“I’m completely naked.”

“Yup.”

She spreads her legs.

He snaps them shut.

“Dang it.”

“Shirt,” he commands, smiling at her tiny whine. “Come on, baby. Put it on.”

Finally, she does. The scent of his clothes crawls into her nostrils, canceling out all redolence of Eren’s smell.

Did she really… moan his name instead of Jean’s earlier?

She grimaces.

Oh, God. She did, didn’t she?

Jiji bounces onto the bed, curling up beside her. She sits, studying her fiancé’s face as he tries to slide socks on her feet, growing frustrated because she keeps wiggling her toes. She laughs.

She just moaned Eren’s name.

She laughs louder.

Everything is so damn funny. She uttered the wrong name! And now she’s not getting laid because of it! Ha ha! HA! She plops back onto the bed, clutching her belly, roaring. Jean ignores her, intent on fully dressing her. But his touch on her toes only makes her giggle more. She’s never laughed this hard in her life; nothing has ever been this ridiculously funny. After a moment, she recovers, staring at the ceiling above, her pulse thumping in her head. Thumping. Thumping. Thumping.

_ Oh, shit. _

“Jean,” she gasps with a start, startling him.

“What?”

“I have to…”

“What?”

“I…”

“What, Mikasa?”

She opens her mouth and promptly vomits all over the carpet.

**—o—**

She is so… so…  _ so _ beautiful. The kind of beautiful men carve out from the stars in the desert, searching for guidance in the pupils of her eyes. She leads them to safety, sometimes to destruction, depending on how captivated the mortals are. And Eren, poor Eren, is transfixed. He floats to her, like a moth to a flame, only to burn.

He rolls over on the bed and throws his arm around her sleeping figure, inhaling her scent. She smells of magic and last night’s booze, of love and gorgeous memory. Sighing, he opens his eyes, sees a spill of her inken hair draped across his pillow. He smiles. Closes his eyes. Sighs again. Smiles.

“Mikasa,” he murmurs, feeling her stir. She moves enough that his arm falls away from her, prompting his eyelids to peel. Blinking, he catches her visage, gapes in mild astonishment as he sees her  transform.

Her hair turns blonde.

Her eyes, blue.

Her skin, paler.

Her nose, growing three times its size.

She isn’t Mikasa—not anymore. She’s… She’s—!!

“Annie?”

“Eren.”

“AAAHHH!!!!” 

Thud.

“Ow!”

Calm as ever, Annie watches him fret and fall off the bed. “Dumbass.”

“What the— Holy f— Oh, my—” Eren pants, feeling for his clothes. They’re still on him. Thank God. He sighs, relieved. Then checks for the zipper of his jeans. Still zipped shut. Hallelujah. 

“What…” he breathes, still on the floor. “What happened?”

Annie stretches her arms over her head, yawning. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—” He goes to rise but a pang of pain in his temple cuts him short. He melts back onto the floor, groaning.

“Ah, careful,” his friend tells him. “You’re probably hungover.”

“Fuck,” he moans, squeezing his eyes shut. “I feel like shit.”

“You look it too.”

“Did we…?”

“What?”

“You know…?”

Not one to make violent facial expressions, the blonde drones, “You wish, Jaeger.”

“Not even kissed?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Damn,” he blinks, scratching his belly, mildly proud of himself. “That’s a first.”

“Yes. Luckily, even wasted out of your mind, you still wouldn’t dream to sleep with me.”

“I don’t mean—”

“I know what you mean, Eren,” she sighs. “I only stayed the night because I was worried.”

“Worried?” he frowns, sitting, blinking at her. “Worried about what?”

Her eyes on him grow somber. “You.”

Eren scoffs, smirking. “Me? What’s there to worry about?”

She scoffs too, as if to say _ a lot _ . So he throws a pillow at her. “Relax,” she says, catching it. “You were saying lots of crazy shit, and Hitch and I got worried. She offered to stay with you to make sure you wouldn’t do anything crazy, but knowing the nature of your, um, relationship… I insisted I’d stay.”

“Well, thanks.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

“What was I saying last night?”

A beat.

He looks at his friend, at how her eyes linger, stare off into space.

Finally, Annie sighs. “You wouldn't want me to tell you.”

“Why?”

She’s quiet for a long time.

His hangover nearly pins him to the ground, but he rises nonetheless. He stands, slowly. His motions are languing as he climbs back onto the bed, the mattress dipping, causing Annie to sway. She still won’t budge. She’s expressionless.

“You said you killed him,” she voices after a while, staring at her wrist brace so as to not see the way his features harden, how his gaze sinks. “You kept saying it: ‘I killed him, I killed him.’ And you cried. You cried more than I’ve ever seen you cry, Eren. You really worried me.”

“I was drunk,” he dismisses, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have taken me so seriously.”

And with that, he goes to move. It's her hand on his wrist that stops him. 

“Eren,” Annie says, and he flinches. “Can I ask you something?” She doesn't wait for him to nod yes. “Did you really kill someone?”

Eren sighs, and wonders what he must seem to her now. He's embarrassed for whatever he said last night, for breaking down the way he did. So much so that a big part of him wants to believe it never really happened. But Annie isn't a liar, and she wouldn't lie to him, especially to him. She’d have no reason to. He knows that.

_ Is  _ he a murderer?

Have the calluses of his hands ever killed? Were they acquired from taking life, instead of fighting to keep it?

“I already told you,” he voices slowly, and without looking at her. “I was drunk.”

Annie doesn't speak. Instead, she gives a rare smile and nods. Her silence is assurance enough, for she frees his wrist and rises from the bed before he does. Eren doesn’t say anything and neither does she. She offers to make him breakfast, and he says yes. Sure. Why not? Her scrambled eggs are banging. As she’s whisking at the yolks, ordering him to brush his teeth and freshen up before eating, he tries to crack a joke, which doesn’t even make her smile.

And he knows why.

**—o—**

Leaves, when blown by the wind in a chorus, sound like waves. It's these little fragments of nature that Mikasa thinks Eren was born from. From the games of trees and accidental miracles. That's why his eyes are the color of forests, but also the color of the sea. So many shades of green and blue, vibrant and dull hues alike fusing and forming like galaxies. She could count the stars, but she's already memorized them. Every freckle, every speck of gold, every feature of his face—memorized. 

And that is why she dreams of him.

Lately, every single night.

She is awoken by the songs of birds, and for a moment she feels that she is at her parents’ house, a child rising to a new morning. But birds sing in cities too. She is in bed, in an apartment, waking from childish reveries to her fiancé calling her for breakfast. Jiji sleeps curled to her side. She rubs at her eyes, yawns, stretches, then goes to stand before sliding her feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers.

In the kitchen, Jean awaits. He’s made pancakes, but not the kind with chocolate chips in them. Mikasa loves the kind with chocolate chips.

“Good morning,” he smiles to her over his tea, and she kisses him on the lips despite her morning breath.

“Mornin’.”

“Sleep well?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” 

They eat in relative silence, Mikasa cutting each individual pancake into small squares. She pops some into her mouth and chews, groggy eyes blinking slowly.

“You threw up a lot last night,” her fiancé says, eyeing her.

“I’m sorry,” she sighs, remembering.

“Don’t be. Shit happens.”

“Right.” 

The clinking of cutlery on plates and Jiji’s occasional meow is all they hear for quite a while. But then: “Baby… Can I ask you something?”

She swallows her food, scratching the corner of her eye. “Sure.”

“Who is this… Eren to you?”

Mikasa sighs, peering down at her hands, how they hold the fork in one, the knife in the other, the half-eaten remains of her breakfast untouched in between.

Well, Jean. That’s a very good question.

Eren Jaeger everything and nothing. A stranger. A friend. Bearer of no future but of all her past. He took many firsts from her, but also many lasts. Forever had once been a promise that tied their souls together. But once upon a time, six years ago, the string broke, and now here they are. Funny how life works. Forever doesn’t really mean much now, she sees, and neither does never, for she swore never to see him again, and look at what happened to that promise. All tossed. All discarded. All changed.

Eren’s a freak of nature, born from contrasts and miracles and parceled by the very stars that created him in their image. He’s so much, sometimes too much. The song of birds and leaves and the low crackle of fire, the wild burst of fireworks, the swooshing and pushing and pulling of the wind and the sea. A hundred miles an hour, and it doesn’t stop. Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. Spinning, reeling, a hurricane, a storm you can’t weather. He’s so much, Jean. He’s just too much.

“He’s nothing,” she breathes, staring down at her fork. “Just a friend.”

“A friend.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve known him for years.”

“Yes.”

“Which means that now, you... you’re talking to him now? Because you’ve never mentioned him, Mikasa. Have you always spoken?”

“No.”

“Have you rediscovered each other—in a way?”

“I…” She swallows, closing her eyes, wanting the conversation to be over. “Yes, I suppose.”

“When will you go see him again?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose it doesn’t.”

“I doubt we’ll meet anytime soon.”

“Well, you sure seem close.”

“We just have a past.”

“What kind of past?”

“A difficult one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Alright. I’ll stop asking questions.”

Jesus. The air feels tense, the pancakes sour. Everything—wrong.

_ Stop,  _ she tells the voice in her head, which calls her a liar. Ever since Eren, she’s done nothing but lie to the man she swore to spend the rest of her life with. And what does that make her?

_ A slut, _ the voice in her head purrs deviously. You’re a lying slut.

She cringes.  _ Be quiet. _

“I’m going to the park today,” she says finally, pushing her plate away, hoping to alleviate the awkward atmosphere somehow. “Would you like to come?”

Jean shakes his head, picking at some food that’s gotten stuck between his teeth. “Can’t,” he sighs. “Work. I’ve got shitloads to do.”

Mikasa sighs, too.

Of course you do, Jean. Of course you do.

**—o—**

Murderers go to jail. 

They live behind bars, caged in with their own demons. Eren doesn’t live in a cell, though. He’s got his walking, breathing body instead.

“You alright?” Annie asks him.

He sighs into his coffee.

Is he?

**—o—**

At the park, Mikasa searches for their bench. It takes her a short while to find it, to walk to it, to sit down. She’s alone. But she doesn’t mind. Sometimes solitude is the ideal company. Especially in a place like this.

Snow dresses the city in white, lounging on the bodies of naked trees and gray buildings. Fragments of sunlight prick through the windows and branches, thawing Mikasa’s pinkened cheeks and catching some small hairs of her ponytail, blazing them red. The sky is clean and blue, cleansed from a night of relentless snowing. 

She waits.

For what, she doesn’t know.

Maybe Eren will magically appear, pop out from behind a tree and say hi to her. She imagines the sound of his voice, the freckle under his right eye, the prickly hairs on his cheeks growing back out from him not shaving. His long hair. His eyelashes. His shoulders. His lips.

This is their bench, and she remembers how the grandpa bench back home had been a sanctuary, an escape. Will this one be the same?

She heaves a deep breath, taking in as much air as her lungs can manage.

And at that moment, a body appears. Sighing smoke, she studies its shape, all the nooks and crannies, the edges and curves, how one end molds into the other. Her eyes place the pieces together, and when the man is close enough that her heart gives a sigh of recognition, she smiles, greets the old friend.

“Hello, Levi. I’ve been waiting for you.”   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to message me on tumblr and please leave me reviews sharing your thoughts! Much love, always.


	18. The Secret Chord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! If I told you guys where I've been this past year, you wouldn't believe me. From hospitals to rehabilitation centers to nearly losing my life, a lot of shit has gone down. And yet, I've come out of it all and am still here somehow. In all honesty, I wholeheartedly intended to abandon this fic, as the lack of feedback was thoroughly disheartening and draining. But this is a story about healing, and that is very much what I am doing in my life right now. And thus, to save myself, to heal and cope, I'm still writing. So, please, as always, enjoy.

**** The damp autumn leaves kissed the soles of her bare feet. Cold and crisp, crumpling softly in mild complaints. The air was still, faint breeze muffled by the brawny figures of aging trees. The sky, an insipid shade of gray, yawned with the approaching morning. It gazed down at her through long, scrawny branches, blessing her with soft rain. In the eerie silence of it all, Mikasa felt safe. Warm. Wholesome. Until—

A gasp. Soft.

Pangs of pain tore into her, snapping her awake. Arduous cramps curled in her lower belly, causing her to jolt in her own skin. And that is how that new part of her life began. With tears. And blood. And a very startled Eren.

Earlier that afternoon, she'd fallen asleep on his bed during a long study session (“study session” meaning that _ she  _ studied while _ he _ napped), when, somewhere along page sixty-four of biology and staring at the gentle way his eyelids fluttered in his sleep, she'd been lulled into a state of unconsciousness. 

The sun was departing, making way for dusk to leak in through the clouds when she cracked an eye open to peer at the hazy furniture in his bedroom, an instinctive hand sneaking down her skirt to reach the odd, wet feeling between her thighs—the source of the pain which had awoken her. She found that her panties were damp and rough to the touch at her center, where it felt, quite honestly, like somebody had pelted her with a bat. There was a lot of pain coming from that area. When she sat up and blinked the haziness away, her eyes were met with her pale, shaky fingertips—and although she saw nothing on them, immediately, she felt it. 

A gush of  _ blood. _

Mikasa ran.

It may have been her gasp of horror, or her desperate flight to his bathroom, or the boom of the door swinging shut that woke him from his rest, but Mikasa was too busy turning the door lock and edging the thrall of a full-fledged panic attack to worry too much about Eren's cry of surprise, the muffled thud that followed, the strings of curses that declared he'd just fallen off the bed.

“What the f—“ She hated it. “Mikasa?!” The alarm in his voice. “Is that you?”

But even more, when she pulled down her panties, sat on the toilet, and peeked at the fabric stretched between her ankles and saw that it was drenched in red, she hated just about everything in life, damned it all. Tears welled up in her eyes. Aghast, she covered her mouth so that he wouldn't hear her crying.

“Mikasa, are you okay?”

More muffled thuds and a fresh string of curses meant Eren was struggling to his feet. A few seconds later, and light from his bedroom crept into the bathroom from the crack under the door. Her heart was pounding, heated face beading with sweat, tears rolling down her cheeks by the time Eren began knocking with a tentative fist.

“Mikasa?” She was utterly humiliated. “What's wrong?” If only toilets could swallow people. “Did something happen?” How nice wouldn't that be? “Mikasa…” Swallow her, toilet bowl. Swallow her whole. “Hey, you alright in there?”

She couldn't bring herself to answer.

Eren's raps grew to frantic pounds.

“Mikasa, talk to me!”

“I'm fine!”

“Are you sure? What happened?”

“I can't—”

“Are you crying?”

Of course, she started sobbing after that.

“Oh, my God,” she heard him breathe, and her heart sank at the thought that he'd possibly discovered the large stain she'd left on his bed. It was dark, crimson, and nasty. It haunted her even from behind the darkness of her closed eyes.

God. How humiliating.

Mikasa cried even harder.

“What's wrong?” he asked, his voice gentle. “Please, Mikasa, tell me. What happened? Why are you crying? You're scaring me.”

“You didn't see it?” she croaked pitifully. “The stain?”

“The what?”

“I just got my period, Eren,” she hiccuped, crying freely into her hands. “And I got it all over your bed!”

“Oh.” A deadpan. It made her eyes fly open and her fretting heartbeat stop.

Was he grossed out?

_ Was he angry? _

Her tears stuck the hairs of her eyelashes together, rolling down her temples, dripping off her chin.

“Is that why you're crying?” Eren voiced softly. Her ears strained to hear him well. “Did you think that I'd be mad?” Even softer now. “Talk to me.” By then, it had dwindled to a whisper, and she could tell he held his forehead to the door, pleading, “Please, Mikasa. Please.”

She was quiet for some time. Sniffling. Wiping the snot on her lip. She hiccuped a bit more, staring at the shadows of Eren's feet under the door, which stretched and joined the darkness of his unlit bathroom. The shadow was unmoving; stubborn, Eren remained. He waited for her voice as she closed her eyes and sighed shakily, opening them to peer at the floor below her feet, trying very hard not to look at her ruined undies.

“It's embarrassing,” she whispered finally, and Eren let out a sigh of his own.

“It happens.”

“No.”

“Mik…”

“I just want to go home.”

“You can't. Your parents don't get back until ten and it's only seven-thirty.”

“I can be home alone.”

“How will you get there?”

“I'll walk.”

“Not like that you won't. I won't let you.”

“Please—”

“Mikasa, stop being ridiculous,” he huffed in frustration, which only made her lower lip quiver even more. He sounded peeved, which prompted her silence. “Just tell me what you need. Do you you need me to get you something? Pain-killers? Pads? Whatever you call those weird tubey things?”

Pfft. Weird tubey things. Despite herself, Mikasa let out a snort, snot erupting out of her nose in the process. “Tampons.” 

“Yeah, tampons. Do you need those?”

“Yes.” She wiped at her snot and tears with the sleeve of her school shirt, the area left damp. When Eren spoke again, she found a small measure of tranquility. His presence became reassuring. What would have happened if she'd been, say, at dance practice right now? If she would've stayed for after-school activities? If she were anywhere but  _ here _ ? Without Eren? Sprinting out of studios and classrooms instead of his room? Granted, she still felt mortified, but her best friend (with a male reproductive system and not the slightest clue of what it was like to be in her position right now) consoled her.

“Okay, I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere.” The shadows vanished from the door as he turned to walk away—quickly returning, though, to add, “Wait! Do you need anything else?”

Mikasa's eyes fell to the polk-a-dot panties she'd owned since she was ten, the mighty blotch of red staining them, the trembling of her thighs… 

“Panties?” she squeaked weakly.

“Okay, got it. Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back. Wait! What size are you?”

“Small?”

“Okay, I'll be back. Wait!”

There was silence. The liquid drip of blood meeting toilet water. 

“…Yes?”

“Are you sure that you're okay?” His mouth must've been very close to the door. It sounded like he was talking into it. The low timbre of his maturing voice rung past the wood, through the darkness, to her ears. “Will you be okay while I'm gone?”

A beat.

Two.

“Yeah.” He didn’t see how she was smiling softly, sniffling in the dark. “I’ll be fine, Eren.”

“Promise me?”

“Promise.”

And then he was gone.

**—o—**

Eren absolutely hated it when Mikasa cried. With his heart thrashing about, and an unspeakable desire to make all of her tears end forever and ever, he pedaled his way to town on his ratty old bike and conjured up just about every question his poor mind could fathom. What do girls need when they're on their period? Tampons? Okay. He asked a (not so friendly) store clerk if they knew where the ladies sanitary napkins were, and, panting, he’d thanked the rude hairless man, beelining to the desired section.

Eren wished his mother was still alive.

That way, he would've been able to call her, ask for help. Ask her why, oh why, there was the cumbersome necessity to make tampons come in such an astonishing plethora of options—lite, regular, super, super plus, scented, unscented (what does that even mean?!), twelve pack, thirty-something pack. Jesus. Jesus Christ. He needed a miracle.

Two minutes of aimlessly pacing down the aisle, reading each brand of the weird tubey contraptions with frantic eyes lead to another two minutes of a thirteen-year-old boy nearly pulling his hairs out. Matters only seemed to get worse when he contemplated calling Mikasa, but then quickly realized that she was probably still locked in his bathroom, in the darkness, crying her eyes out and… Dear God, _they come with different insertion methods too?!_

Cue the loud internal screaming.

“Armin,” he rasped into his phone. “I need you.”

_ “What is it?”  _ his best friend questioned from the other side of the line. Eren could tell from his voice that he was busy. Busy studying, most likely.  _ “Everything okay?” _

“It’s Mikasa. She’s bleeding.”

_ “What!?!” _

“She’s bleeding, Armin!”

Armin let out a long sigh. _ “Eren, please, calm down. I need you to explain. Bleeding where?” _

“Out of… out of her…”

_ “Vagina?” _

“Dude! Oh, my God. You can’t just say it like that.”

_ “God, Eren. Did she get her menses?” _

“Her… what…”

_ “Her period!” _

“Oh. Yeah, she just got it!”

His friend was quiet for a while. Eren could hear a faint rustling of paper, another small sigh leaving his lips. _ “And I am needed in all this because…?” _

Eren gazed at the monstrosity of the display before him, daunted eyes skimming through all the different options. “I’m at the store getting her tampons and I don’t know what to do.”

_ “Okay. Listen closely. Just do as I say.”  _

And he did as he said and more. Thank God for Armin, for his intelligence, his lore on what the difference between a panty-liner and a pad is. Eren didn’t even bother questioning how he knew all those things. Eren didn’t bother questioning a lot of things when it came to Armin.

He spent two weeks worth of allowance on her that day. Three shopping bags swung and rattled in his hands as he sprinted out of the store, and he didn't mind the curious eyes that watched him with amusement and concern, nor the trip back to his house which nearly cost him his life when a car came just a hair from his bicycle. But when he finally got home, and the house was all dark just like the sky save for the single lighting of his bedroom, Eren minded very much the possibility of hearing Mikasa cry again, of her aching embarrassment, of her thinking she had troubled him at all.

When he knocked on the bathroom door and panted out her name, she took quite a long time to answer him.

Eventually, though, she did.

“Eren? Is that you?”

His bangs were damp and glued to his forehead. With his hands full of plastic bags, he wiped at his sweat with a forearm, heaving, “I got your things.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Open up.”

“…'Kay.”

She took a few moments to reach the door. When she did, and opened it, and looked at him through puffy reddened eyes, it hit him how pretty she looked. Even with snot coming out of her nose. Even with her hair in a frazzled mess. Even with her bottom lip all sore and ruddy from her biting into it.

“Your tampons,” he offered, clearing his throat. “I didn’t know what size to get so I got all of them. Oh, and here’s your new panties. I got you pink ones. And blue ones, ‘cause I like blue.”

Mikasa snorted gently, wiping her nose with her shirt sleeve before taking the bags from his hands. 

“Thank you, Eren,” she murmured gently.

“You’re welcome,” he replied.

“You’re panting,” she noted.

Eren shrugged. “I ran.”

“Well, don’t breathe near me.”

“Why?”

“It smells like… period blood in here.”

“I love period blood!” was the first thing that came out of his mouth. Eren cringed at his own words, slapping a hand on his face in his embarrassment.

Mikasa laughed. It was light. Breathy.  “Okay, Eren.”

“Um, sorry. I’m just… nervous.”

“Why?”

He sighed, gazing down at his muddy Converse. He’d dragged dirt into his room from outside. His dad would be mad, but his dad was never home, so it didn’t really matter. “I just hate seeing you cry, Mik. I really fucking hate it.”

She shifted a little, sniffling. “I’m fine.”

And with that, silence befell them. Eren lifted his gaze slowly to meet her face. And she was still sniffling, still red, still embarrassed and so fucking pretty. “You can take a bath if you want,” he said eventually, catching his breath. “I don’t want you to be… you know, uncomfortable.”

“But I have no clothes,” the girl said sadly.

“Yeah, you do. I still got all of Mom’s clothes in my closet.”

And at that, Mikasa’s eyes widened slightly. But Eren didn’t mind offering her his late mother’s clothes. Because, after her death, Dad began to disappear a lot more often, escaping into his work and God knows what else. He gave Eren his big master bedroom, and took the smaller one that belonged to his son. Probably because he felt so depressed over the loss of his wife, and remaining in their bedroom brought back too many memories. Memories of her being healthy, healthy enough to share a bed, to lift up baby Eren, to cook and dance and sing and take showers all by herself. Who knows. But now Eren had this huge bedroom and a bathroom all to himself and a closet with his mother’s clothes still in it because neither him or Dad had the heart to get rid of them.

“Eren, I can’t wear her clothes,” sighed Mikasa, a thread of hair stuck to her lips.

“Why not? She’d want you to.”

“But…”

“Shut up. Go take a bath. I’m gonna go get clothes for you right now.”

“Eren—”

“I’m gonna take a big, deep breath now!”

“No!” She shut the door. “Gross, Eren!”

He laughed.

Eren really wished that his mother was still alive.

**—o—**

He could see the stars blinking far away from his window, the moon a fixed point in space no bigger than his thumb. It’s funny to think that this puny thing contained a force strong enough to draw the waves of the oceans to it. People were like that sometimes. Mikasa was like that. Armin, too. Quiet, distant, yet bold enough to draw in the energy around them. Armin did that when he went on about space, the outside world, twinkling with so much knowledge. Mikasa did that when she merely entered rooms, for all heads turned to look at her. To stare at her blooming grace in awe. 

Eren could hear her humming to herself, the water splashing softly with her every move, soft waves her gentle force created. He listened in to her little song, pressing his back to the door. He’d been telling her stories, laughing as his ass went numb from sitting on the floor. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave her. He slid another square of chocolate under the door and told her not to get water everywhere when she hopped over to retrieve it before sinking back into the tub.

“Mmm,” he heard her hum. “Delicious.”

“You have problems,” Eren smirked, unwrapping his own square of chocolate. “Dark chocolate’s not even that good.”

“Well, this is coming from someone who hates chocolate, so I won’t take your word for it.”

“Shit,” he groaned, chewing. “Tastes like shit.”

“Then why do you eat it?”

“‘Cause you’re eating it.”

“But you hate chocolate, Eren.”

“Not when it’s your chocolate.”

“But you just said it tasted like poop!”

“I love poop.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

He smirked.

She hummed.

The stars kept on twinkling and shining.

He let the back of his head thump the door behind him softly, breathing, closing his eyes. For a moment, he just sat there, listening to Mikasa. And it hit him how fast they were growing, for only some short years ago, she’d bumbled into his life, a tiny girl made of dresses and neat little buns and huge eyes that spawned the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen. And now she had boobs and a period. She was a woman! Almost as tall as him. And Eren hated that they kept growing and growing, for maturing without his mother to see felt like discarding her, leaving her behind. As time went by and his features changed and his teeth straightened with his braces and his voice cracked with puberty and his adam’s apple bulged out and hair began to grow in places he couldn’t understand, the chasm between him and her memory grew evermore, gaping. It left a giant hole nothing could fill. 

“Hey,” Eren breathed after a while. “I have an idea.”

“Tell me.”

“You should sing.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on! I’ll sing with you.” 

“No, Eren.”

He took that as a yes. 

“Alright,” he groaned softly after some time, sitting back down with his old guitar in hand. He’d already outgrown it, his hands too large and arms too long to operate it correctly. He’d have to get a new one soon. “Alright, now. Whaddaya wanna sing?”

“Nothing.”

“Leonard Cohen it is.”

Mikasa groaned, and he smiled, his fingertips pulling at each individual string, the vibrations weaving through every chord and floating out to dance around them. It took him a couple of minutes to get the hang of it, but eventually, Eren managed to remember the song he’d learned to play by ear. The music filled Mikasa, caressing heat onto her cheeks, moving her lips to whisper along to the lyrics.

_ I heard there was a secret chord _

_ That David played and it pleased the Lord _

_ But you don’t really care for music, do you? _

_ Well it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth _

_ The minor fall, the major lift _

_ The baffled king composing Hallelujah _

Hallelujah, she breathed. Hallelujah, closing her eyes. It was a sound full of hope and remorse and want and longing. So painfully beautiful, a vivid description of loss, each lyric a confession of what the silent breaths of depressed souls could not find the language to convey. She wondered how many voices were woven into this song, and the dancer in her moved, quietly, to the gentle strums from Eren’s guitar.

Suddenly, she realized she was singing. 

Eren smiled to himself, strumming away.

Her little tweet mixed with his low hum, soft and sweet. Gentle. They made music through the cracks of a door, with soft splashes of water and a spine curled against the hard wood, fidgeting every five minutes in discomfort. The old arms of a clock pirouetted, spinning to the tune the teens gave out, but when both hands struck nine o’clock, Mikasa’s fingertips were pruney from the water, and Eren could no longer feel his ass.

Exhausted smiles touched their blushing cheeks, and Eren waited as Mikasa dressed in his mother’s old clothing. A few moments later and a coy girl was prying the bathroom door open, peeking out through a thin slit and saying, “Ready?”

Eren grinned. “Ready.”

She came out. Dressed, from head to toe, in the garments of an old ghost. She made the clothes come alive somehow, as if they belonged to her and only her. Her hair was loose and hung limply at her shoulders, the very tips dampened from her bath. The backs of her hands and knuckles and the very tip of her nose were all soft and sort of blushy, and Eren felt as if he was gazing at a stranger. She’d changed too fast, his heart couldn’t keep up with it. Because life had always been harsh with him, stolen his innocence. But Mikasa was still pure. And he wanted so desperately to maintain her, to keep her this way. The unsullied streak of color remaining in his life.

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to wear this?” she asked him suddenly.

Eren only scoffed.

“Spin,” he told her. “I can’t believe Ma’s dress fits you so well.”

So she spun, and as she did, something in Eren sort of shattered. He missed his mother. He missed her so much. And seeing his best friend like that, in her clothing, bathed in her scent, resurrecting the dead somehow, made him miss her even more. Need her.

If Mom were alive, everything would be different.

Eren wouldn’t have had to console a crying Mikasa. She would not have needed to feel so ashamed of getting her period. He would not have had to sit on the other side of the door and play his guitar to cheer her up. Everything, today, and yesterday and tomorrow, would’ve been different. Ma stained each day with her presence, and her absence left everything scattered, left Eren scrambling day by day to restore the pieces somehow. And it surely didn’t help that Dad was always gone now. What was left of his family was just this roof, the floor below him, and the girl standing before him now.

“Eren. You okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You sort of spaced out on me.”

“Oh. I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing,” he smiled faintly. “I never think about anything.”

Mikasa’s face scrunched. “That’s a lie.”

“Hush.”

“You hush.”

“Shh.”

“Shh!”

She punched him.

He groaned.

Mikasa had to be the strongest ballerina in existence. 

“I should go,” she breathed after a long while, her fingers curling in the fabric of the dress. “It’s getting late.”

No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even ten yet. But Eren knew what she was doing. As was her custom, once things became too much, too intimate, it was time for Mikasa to retreat. Coil back into the safety of her own shell. The dress, the embarrassment of getting her period, the way he looked at her… All too much for her to take.

“I’ll take you,” Eren finally declared. And the girl was too tired to argue.

**—o—**

Thank you for walking me home, she told him.

No biggie, we’re neighbors, he said.

Be careful on your way back, she added.

I’ll be fine, he confirmed.

See you at school tomorrow, she then smiled.

And thus it went, and Eren remembered that there was such a thing as school, such a thing as obligations, such a thing as a life outside of Mikasa Ackerman. A life outside of their naps and her calm eyes and soft smiles and burgeoning figure and chocolate squares and songs. And before this night, he had never felt such a strong desire to protect her, to take care of her. And she’d kissed him so many times before, let her hand linger in places he never allowed anyone else to brush against without flinching. And he had never felt anything, registered something more than the simplicity of physical touch. Until now. Until now.

Awkwardly, he watched, she stood, and the moon hung low above them.  _ I love you like the stars love the moon, _ he was tempted to say then, to remind her, a small shiver in his heart fluttering. But he did not utter the words, for they felt too sudden, too crass—even for him.  The vehemence of what he felt for her was frightening. Looking at her then, dressed in his mother’s clothing, standing on her porch, nearly brought him to tears. Perhaps he simply missed his mother, or just cared a lot for Mikasa, or just… oh, who knows? But something changed in him. Something new and odd and sweet came alive within him. Thus, Eren did the only thing he knew how to do when his feelings seemed to get the best of him. 

He ran.

For his fucking life.

He did not say goodbye. Suddenly, he couldn’t. Pedaling away on his bicycle, with the wind ruffling his hair and shirt and pants, he put as much distance as he could between him and the girl. Between him and his neighbor. Between him and his mother’s dress. For, at thirteen, Eren had just made a terrifying, horrific, life-threatening discovery.

He liked her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like the idea of Eren discovering his feelings for her before she discovers hers for him, as it is often depicted to be the other way around in the fandom. This chapter is more abrupt with his conscientious growth and how the changes occurring to him and Mikasa are beginning to scare him, and he has not only grown externally, but something internally has flourished within him as well. Anyway, more on that later.
> 
> Please, leave a review if you wish for me to continue this story. Reviews/likes/reblogs on tumblr are the only profit fanfic writers make from their stories. It means the world.


	19. A Heart's Destination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still can’t believe I am managing to write with all that is happening in my life right now, wow. Anyway, I took some liberties with Levi’s character because he is much older here and I believe oldfart!Levi to be still crude but much gentler. Enjoy.

 

What would the world be, should the sounds it breathes vanish? And what of the sky, should its lively hues evanesce? What of colors if not seen through eyes that can see, of music if not heard through ears made for hearing?

Mikasa wonders, for she has loved people who’ve been barren of these privileges. Cripples, in the eyes of most—menders, in hers. The blind were made so that the world could see through them. The deaf, so that the serenity of silence conveyed what words could never reach. And so, when Levi, with his shades and his scars and his baton stands before her, she is swept with an enormous sense of gratitude, overwhelmed by the presence she hasn’t felt in so long. And she knows he cannot see her. And yet she smiles at him, at the colors of the sky, at the sounds of the world bustling and respiring around them.

“How did you find me here?” she asks him, and his stance is placid, almost serene. His shoulders are squared, the way every soldier's’ learns to tighten in order to bear the great weights they are forced to carry. His hands are rugged and worn, weapons forged through years of fighting other men’s battles. Yet his demeanor is gentle when he responds, revealing the ancient reverence of an old relative, an old friend.

“A little bird told me you’re in the city,” he crows, the sound of his voice buzzing in her ears, resuscitating. “And, knowing you, I knew it was either waiting for shit not to stink or finding you myself.”

Mikasa smirks. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah.” And he sits beside her. No hug, no handshake, no ruffling of hair. Six years since she’s last seen him, and the man is still not one to show a nuance of affection. It’s hard to believe that they’re related, that he took her under his wing after her parents were gone. She owes so much of who she is to him and yet there they are, as if the past were made of lace, just a gossamer mesh of nothing. And perhaps it really is that simple. In the grand pattern of life, some people’s fates intertwine with the relative ease of two ends coming together, threads that weave parallel paths. It is in this manner that this odd family reunion develops. With the calm sigh shared between two Ackermans, and a pair of black manes collecting small flakes of falling snow.

“You must have something you wish to tell me,” Mikasa says after a while, eyeing the scar that stretches across the bridge of his nose. And his eyes are closed, shielded by a pair of shaded spectacles, yet she studies the individual hairs of his eyelashes, the proud ridges of his cheekbones, the hardened features that hardly resemble her father at all. Where Dad was made of tulle and breath and light, Levi was carved from the shadows of the harsh world he was made to live in. It was difficult to gauge that they were brothers, cut from the same cloth.

He rests his baton against the edge of the bench they sit on, crossing one leg over the other. His voice is languid, perpetually carrying that caustic undertone that hints he’s already done with the conversation before it’s even began. If she didn’t already know him so well, it would offend her. “How’d you guess?”

“Little bird told me.”

“Brat. That’s my line,” he huffs, and Mikasa can’t help her smile, watching how he stares straight ahead, toying with a loose thread on his jacket. “I heard you’re getting married.”

“I am.”

“I don’t remember receiving a wedding invitation.”

She’s quiet for a moment, her eyes falling sadly. “Levi…”

“I get it, kiddo. I get it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. You don’t owe shit to me.”

Mikasa’s lips part futilely, for words are far from reach. Snowflakes fall subtly around them, blanketing the bare tree branches, the streets, their coats with specks of white. She knows Levi can’t see the snow, but she wonders if he senses it. They sit so freely unexposed under its quiet rain, basking in its gentle blessing. A flake clings to a thread of hair that’s fallen over his face, hair that’s grown long and unruly since his buzz-cut days in the army.

“You see,” one of them speaks, and she realizes it’s Levi. “Before your Daddy went on and left your Mama, I made a promise to him to take care of you. And I’m still keeping my promise. Shit, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Mikasa’s features harden, her lips pursing tight. Levi’s small of stature, but his words have always carried an elevated air to them, a confidence that burgeons his presence into something grand, respectful. Yet she is bold enough to quarry, “I don’t need you to take care of me, Uncle.”

Levi only scoffs. “I already told you not to call me that. And perhaps you’re right. You’re a grown-ass woman now, weeks from getting hitched. But nobody’s got to be a genius to know you’ve made a clusterfuck of your life.”

“It’s good to know you’re still eloquent as ever,” his niece sighs through the remnants of a tiny smile.

“Well, let’s get straight to the point, then, shall we?”

“Please.”

He sniffles, fidgeting in his seat. The thread on his jacket he’d been toying with dangles undisturbed for a moment, but then he is quick to meddle with it again, constantly needing to occupy himself with some sort of physical employment. Mikasa can’t remember if that is a consequence of his OCD, or PTSD, or his blindness, or all of them combined.

“You’re unhappy,” he says, and she can feel herself tensen, her gaze dropping to the adjoined hands at her lap. “I can smell it on you. And Eren. He’s here. You know that, yes?”

“I do.”

“You’ve met him.”

A whisper. “Yeah.”

“He’s a hell of a lot different now, ain’t he? All grown up.”

“He really is.”

“That’s fucked up, Miki. You’re getting married and you’re hanging out with your ex. How do you do it?”

She sighs, closing her eyes. “I know I shouldn’t. I know that. It feels wrong, but…”

“But you can’t help it, can you?” It’s not even a taunt, nor a question he’d voiced hoping for an answer. Levi shakes his head, frowning, tying the loose thread he plays with into a small knot. “I’ve never been able to understand why you’re so attached to him, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. The past’s the past.”

Mikasa stares at her fingers, at her engagement ring, the chipped nail polish of her nails. Then her gaze slowly rises to her uncle’s somber face. She studies him, seeking traces of Dad in his visage. But he’s not there, not even in the slightest. In a way, her uncle is a stranger to her now. Disconnected from her parents, her childhood. And it occurs to her that perhaps he has played a bigger role in her life than she’s given him credit for. She wonders how much of this present moment she owes to him, asking, “Levi… Did you help Eren? After…”

“You dumped him?” He nods, chuckling drily. “Yeah, I did. Took him a while, but he managed to get up on his own two feet. I’m just surprised he’s stayed here all this time. I thought he’d go crawling back as soon as he realized what he’d gotten himself into, but the boy’s never been one to quit.”

“Why’d you do it?”

Her uncle’s quiet for a while. Then the sturdiness of his shoulders sways, waves that wash over him with a release of breath. His voice is so much softer when he speaks again. So much gentler. As the topic requires to be handled delicately, with extra care.  “I knew, when he called me up looking for a place to stay, that I’d lost you. And I was right. You’ve got some nerve not reaching out to your uncle all these years.”

“Levi…”

“What’s done is done.”

“I really am sorry.”

“I know.”

Mikasa bites her lip, feeling for the scarf around her neck. She’s so tempted to pour it all out, to tell her uncle that she hasn’t been herself since she severed ties with everyone all that time ago. Six years should’ve been enough to wipe the slate clean, to redesign her. But old smoke resurrects, wafting off of flames that have never been extinguished. How foolish of her to think she could go on pretending that her past was not hers, that her life was not hers, that all she and everyone else had ever gone through was only an illusion. And she’s done a great job of convincing herself that she doesn’t truly exist, so much so that hearing her own name sometimes startles her. When Jean whispers that he loves her, and she hears herself answering back, it’s as if this physical realm has somehow betrayed her, pulled her into existence without her consent. How can a shell ever feel anything? How could a phantom possibly love? Because in her mind, she has achieved such a tragic disconnection. In her mind, she’s crafted realities where loss and pain do not exist, where loving people does not equal losing them, where having a name does not mean hearing it pronounced through the blood-drenched mouths of the dying. But then there’s Eren. And Levi. And this red scarf around her neck. All relics of her past that breathe and speak and remind her that she is very much real, that the course of her life is not transparent. She is here. All flesh and bone and pulse and breath and all _here_.

“Eren told you where I was, didn’t he?” And she’s not one to hide her smile when her uncle grunts.

“You’re damn right he did. I would’ve ripped him a new one if he kept something like this from me.”

“Have you kept in contact with him all this time?”

He nods, pushing his shades farther up the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. I ain’t no father, but he’s needed some guidance these couple of years. God knows he always ends up doing whatever the hell he wants anyway, but he’s done well, made a man of himself.” He pauses for a moment. Then, “Grisha would be proud.”

Mikasa sighs. “That’s good to hear.” Because Grisha once happened to her too. Carla once happened. Papa once happened. Mama once happened. Armin, Eren, Levi, all real and hers and happened.

Levi ceases to play with the thread on his coat, and she itches to reach out and touch him. To coil her fingers around his, latch onto him the way she used to do as a child. But his nature is much colder than that now, far more distant. She remembers that soldiers can’t be loved like everyone else. Even tender contact can register as an assail, so she loves him through her gaze, her admiration. Having him now beside her, smelling his familiar scent, hearing his voice and feeling his presence and breathing his air, she feels a piece of herself come back together, one of the scattered remnants of her being returning to its rightful place. Because this is what it is to miss someone. To miss a piece of yourself. To find it again. Be reunited.

“It’s not him I’m worried about anymore, though,” her uncle frowns suddenly, turning his head to face her. “You’re sad, Mikasa.”

She laughs ironically, gazing up at the sky. It’s all white. An arid plane emanating little whispers of cold moisture, snowflakes that stick to her eyelashes, that tickle when she blinks. “God, I am.”

“Tell me.”

But how could she? How could she voice what she can hardly admit to herself? She closes her eyes, guarding herself from the world, from her uncle, from the truth. And still, it spills out. Because the vial of her body has grown too thin, too small to contain the soul within it. The burdens it carries. The past it lugs around and the future it can hardly convince itself of achieving.

“I thought…” it’s only a breath, but her uncle hears her, “for so long, I thought that after everything that happened, all I had to do was start new. And now I’m exactly where I wanted to be, and yet everything feels so hollow, Levi. All this time I’ve… I’ve just meandered along, not really doing or being anything. I feel like a ghost.”

She blinks, surprised at her own words. It’s one thing to feel it, but to voice her emotions aloud… well, that’s something she hasn’t done in years. Part of her wants to recoil, but she’s already uncapped this affluent current, and thus, it pours: “I don’t even know how I got to this point. Starting clean, it seemed so promising. But I’m so lost, Levi. Half the time, I don’t know what I’m feeling, and the other half, I just feel nothing at all. It’s like I don’t really exist. I think back on who I was before all this mess… and it’s so hard to believe that this is it. All those years of my life spent dreaming and planning just to end up”—she motions vaguely to her surroundings—“here.”

“And now you’ve moved to this big-ass city.” Her uncle smiles, but it’s half-hearted. “There’s a lot of promise and people in this place, yet you feel alone. I don’t think the problem is your life or what’s become of it, Mikasa. It’s you.”

“I know that.”

“Why _are_ you here, then?”

Mikasa curls her hands into fists, her joints popping from the cold. And it still shocks her that these are her hands, that that’s her engagement ring on her finger, that this is her body and her life and what’s become of her. When she speaks of Jean, it’s as if he doesn’t belong to her either, like he’s this faceless actor in the grand picture of her life. All hers. All fake. All fathomed.

“My fiance’s inheriting his father’s business,” she breathes, reminding herself of the fact, “so we’re staying in the city for a few years to begin our family.”

“So you’re just tagging along till you tie the knot and start popping out a couple of kids?”

“I suppose.”

“Ain’t that ambitious.”

“It’s simple enough. I could do simple. But I never expected…” She trails off, staring ahead. In the distance, a child runs with its mother, and she watches the way the adult chases after her little boy, scooping him up in her hands and giggling at his little squeals when she nuzzles her nose into his neck. Mikasa sighs, smiling softly. She daren’t dream of a life like that, where chasing her own children and tossing them in the air is her method of happiness, her celebration of life. Because how could one possibly go from here to there? From this to content? Some people were just born sad. They’ve got grief engraved in them, so wishing for something better is self-treachery in a way. Against their nature. Against hers.

She closes her eyes, feeling the gentle wind on her skin, the snowflakes, God’s caress upon her features. Even if she was born to suffer, she must admit that she’s been blessed. Blessed with eyes that can see, with ears that can hear, with a heart that feels despite how hard her mind tries to numb it. Her voice is laced with steam when she speaks again. Wafting and gentle. “I never thought I’d see him again. Eren. I was ready to live my life without him.”

Levi nods, sighing softly. “Yet here you are.”

“Here I am.” She laughs. A mere chuckle. “And he just… God, I can’t explain it.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t. I don’t understand anything anymore, if I’m being honest. I was fine with never having to see him again. I was fine with never having to see you either—no offence.”

“None taken.”

“I just wanted to erase the past, Levi, I mean, all those horrible things that happened. Mom, Dad, Armin. Even you. Even Eren. Just… erase all of it. And my fiance is a good man. He loves me. He loves me so much. He wants us to live a good life. _I_ want us to live a good life. A simple one. Can’t that be enough? Can’t wanting something safe, something that stays for once in my life… why can’t I just have that? No complications, no stress. Just the simplicity of _being_ , can’t that be okay? Why do I feel so confused all the time? Like my heart’s being torn in two? I don’t know. And now everytime I think of Eren, of visiting him or seeing him or just running into him in the streets, I feel so… so alight. Like I’ve got something to live for. And that’s so messed up! I’m going to be married soon. How could I do this to my husband? How could I do this to myself?”

“Alright.” Levi holds up his hand, signaling for her to stop. “I’ve heard enough.”

Mikasa balks, ashamed of herself. It occurs to her that she’s violated her nature, for she knows she should be coy, quiet. A real woman is soft and meek and content with what she has despite how little it may be. And what does she even have to complain about? She’s engaged to a good man, has financial stability, they own a home and a cat and so what if Eren’s back in her life? So what if she both enlightens and confuses her? What woes does she truly have to speak of? Her mother taught her to be graceful, to bear her burdens with strength and pride. And yet here she is cracking, breaking, a far cry from what she’s trained herself to be. Wallowing in undeserving self-pity. Confessing truths that should be kept inside.

A lip clenches between her teeth, regretful. “I’m sorry,” she breathes. And Levi groans at that.

“Agh, what’s the use? Don’t apologize. You had to get shit off your chest. There, you did it. Congrats. Now, let’s move forward.”

“I’m sorry— I mean. Okay, yeah. Okay. I’ll be quiet.”

Levi shakes his head, sighing at his niece’s incompetence. Despite herself, Mikasa bites back a smile, watching the way her uncle stretches his neck back, his adam’s apple bobbing as he speaks. “There’s no use in moping, Mikasa. I mean damn. Eren was right.”

“Eren? Right about what?”

Levi shakes his head after it falls forward. “You’re not who you used to be, kiddo.”

She doesn’t object, doesn’t even bother to plead her case. Gazing at the people strolling by, at the snow, the winter, the sky, she pronounces coldly: “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”

Levi doesn’t see. He doesn’t see how frigid she turns, how devoid of feeling, warmth, expression. How she stares straight ahead, her eyes registering nothing. She is nothing. A ghost. A shell of a woman. And Levi doesn’t see anything.

He surprises her by finding her hand. He gives it a squeeze. “I actually… I came here to tell you something. I ain’t no damn storyteller but I think this is one you’d like to hear.”

“A story?” Mikasa’s eyebrows raise when he nods. “Eren sent you here to tell me a story?”

“First of all,” her uncle objects, raising a finger, letting go of her hand, “Eren didn’t send me nowhere. He told me where you were. I came on my own accord, he’s got no say on what I do or don’t do. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Second,” he sighs, his harsh demeanor falling, “just listen to me. Please. I think… this is the only way that I know how to help you.”

Mikasa straightens, tempted to object. She doesn’t need help. She doesn’t need Eren, or her uncle, or this engagement ring or this scarf or any other clutch, any other lifeline. But this is only what she tells herself, for her heart knows better. It knows that she’s hurting, that she won’t admit it, but she really is hurting. And she’s missed Levi. And she loves Levi. And she really, really, really does want his help.

She needs help.

She’s human. A fragile, brittle thing.

And god, please, she really wants help. Really needs it.

“Tell me,” she whispers, and her uncle is quick to begin.

“Back in the military,” he tells her, facing straight ahead, as if lost in a distant memory. “I knew this man. He was a commander. One hell of a soulless tank, that one. They used to call him The Devil. He was ruthless with his orders, had lots of lives stocked up under his belt. I never understood how he could just waste people like that, send them to their deaths. And for what? What were they all dying for? A country that couldn’t give a shit whether they’d ever see the sun again? It just seemed pointless to me. So when they made me general and ordered me to lead beside him, I admit I felt sort of torn. I didn’t give a shit about winning no damn war, the way he did. I just wanted my men to stay alive. No matter the cost. They had lives they needed to go back to, families they had to provide for. That mattered more to me than any mess our country had gotten us into. So for the first few months, we didn’t get along. Took me a long time to respect him. It wasn’t until I watched him die, though, that I think I really understood why he did everything he did.”

A breath slips in between his front teeth. He brushes the scar on his nose with the very tip of his finger, insinuating that this all occurred in the event in which he’d acquired the old wound. Mikasa wasn’t even born by then. She wasn’t even a thought at the time this was all happening to her uncle.

Straightening, he continues. “I kinda saw how much we had in common then. They shot him, practically ripped his arm off by the socket. I stayed with him while he bled to death, but I had to ask him first. Ask him _why._ How could he live with himself knowing he’d led so many people to their tombs. And you know what he said? He said he was willing to discard his own humanity if it meant preserving the humanity of others. The guy was willing to become a monster if it meant his country could remain free, that kids could play around and women walk freely on the streets and men build homes they could be proud of. I think that was when I understood that death is just a door, you know. It’s not the end. And this shit…” he motions to their surroundings, to her sitting frame beside him, to everything, to nothing. “God, all this,” he shakes his head, smiling, “this ain’t it, Miki. This ain’t it. There’s more to everything, you know? More to life. More to why we’re here, why we’re living.”

She’s taken aback by his fervor. Mikasa has never seen her uncle speak in this manner. Her lips split apart to speak but he cuts her off, clearing his throat, straightening his jacket.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, sometimes people do things that seem soulless for the greater good. The only thing we’re allowed to believe is that we won’t regret the choices that we’ve made along the way.”

“Do you regret it, Levi?” she asks him finally. “The war? What happened to you?”

“I don’t regret a damn thing.” He faces her, pointing to the ugly gash across the bridge of his nose, the whiteness of his eyes. “Not even this. The course of my life has been a hard and confusing one, but shit had to pan out the way it did. Sometimes, I don’t really get why. But I’m here, aren’t I? And that’s worth something. Shit, that’s really worth something. Point is, kid, you can’t live your life in fear. You gotta know that no matter what comes your way, no matter how bad it is, that you’ll be fine. I think there’s a reason why you’re here now, and it ain’t got nothing to do with your marriage. But you’re scared. You’re scared because you’ve been turned off for so long, that feeling alive now… that’s scary.”

Mikasa scoffs. “I wish you didn’t know me so well.”

But mustn’t heard her. “You’re a lot like your old man. Brave as shit, but you’re sensitive. You gotta learn, Miki. You gotta live your life with pride, and sometimes that means discarding your humanity to do what ultimately is right.”

But truly, what _is_ right, anyway?

Inhaling ice and snowflakes, Mikasa swallows down the lump in her throat. Overwhelmed, she wipes at the small beads collecting at the corners of her eyes. And perhaps it is the wind, for she hasn’t cried in years, but the emotions she feels are raw and palpable, vivid enough to ache, to sting behind her eyelids. She knows what her uncle is trying to tell her. She knows that he urges her to live, to honor the course of her life. But look at where it’s gotten her. It’s brought her here to him, to strangers she swore never to meet again, to a pair of foggy, clouded eyes that hide behind sheen mantels of black and see nothing, a gaze the world decided to steal, convinced it’d witnessed far too much to continue.

To a pair of green and blue and golden stars.

To dimples that smile at her with every curve of svelte lips that give wings to words that take flight only to soar straight into her, through the barricades, through the bullshit, straight to her essence. Her core.

But it is wrong. But it is _wrong._

“I can’t be with Eren.” It’s so plain, so colorless. A bland statement. The truth.

Yet Levi does not answer, so Mikasa presses on.

“I’m _engaged_.”

“Does Eren make you happy, Mikasa?”

The question catches her off guard. She gapes at her uncle, her tongue scrambling for the correct words. The appropriate answer. The coy, womanly one.

But nothing surprises her more than her own voice saying: “Yes.” Because it’s true. “He does.” Because it’s true and it’s wrong but it’s true and Mikasa is tired, so damn tired, of being dishonest.

Eren makes her happy.

Shit, Eren makes her so, so happy.

And he also makes her angry. And sad. And scared. But so happy. He makes her feel and he makes her speak and he makes her use muscles in her face she didn’t even know were there, like, how could one smile that deeply? With that much of their nose and eyes and cheeks? And her heart’s learned to beat in this new frenzied manner that makes her question if it has always known to dance this way but has kept silent until the right song sprung into her life. Until this period in her story. And yes, Eren Jaeger makes her happy. And that makes her feel so guilty, so embarrassed, so great. Because he makes her feel. Because she feels. And that is _so_ important.

“Then you gotta fight for that.” Levi finds her hand again. This time, his bare skin on hers is startling, icy flesh thawing into hers. “You gotta hold on to every little spark you find along the way. Even if that little spark is Eren.”

She peers at his knuckles, at their scars. And they remind him so much of Eren’s hands. Of Ymir’s. Of Annie’s broken wrist. Of people who have had to fight for their places in this world, for every breath that pours into and out of them. People who didn’t have their joys handed to them, who had to claw for them and gnaw for them with their bare teeth.

“So you think…” she hesitates, studying his face. Despite the tender way he holds her, he is expressionless. “You think I should go to him.”

Levi gives her hand a squeeze. Feeling her. And the last time he’d held her like this, her hand had been much smaller, frailer, belonging to a girl nearly half her age. “I think you should be true to yourself and follow your heart, Mikasa. Wherever it may lead you.”

She sighs. “What if it leads me to disaster?”

This time, Levi gives a hearty laugh. “That could very well happen. But it’s better to fuck up and earn the right to say you lived your fucking life, than to waste it away shitting yourself all alone on a corner ‘cause you’re too scared to be somebody.”

And then, at that, Mikasa giggles like a child. Her uncle gives a huff of annoyance, and he is about to question what she’s all riled up about when she rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. He tenses at the contact, but she reminds him that it’s safe, that it’s okay, that she’s so much bigger now and he’s so much older but that she’s still his little niece, his little girl, the one he used to sneak chocolate bars under her bedroom door for in the middle of the night when he was visiting because he didn’t agree with Mama’s rules. The one whom he’d told her war stories to and warned that the world was unkind. The one he was so harsh and unrelenting to, yet always sure to show her kindness. To show her that words aren’t always necessary to convey love. Sometimes, it is shown through sacrifice. Through the way he relaxes under her cheek when she says:

“I’ve missed you.”

Levi’s quiet for a moment. Mikasa cannot see him, but she knows he’s smiling. She can hear it in his voice.

“You’ve grown,” he croons. “You’re quite the sight, young lady.”

Mikasa snickers softly. “Levi, you’re blind.”

“Ah,” he tells her then, his hand still in hers, her head lingering on his shoulder. “You don’t need eyes to know when something’s beautiful.”

And you don’t need ears to know the same. Armin reminded her of that, many years ago. He was deaf and Levi is blind and neither of them are any less because of it, not a hair inferior to her or the rest of the world. She’s reminded of a story she’d heard years ago where a blind man, begging to be cured of his ailment, was denied by a messiah to have his vision restored. You were made blind so that the rest of the world could learn to see through you, he’d told him. We are all given our burdens so that we can reap the blessings they hold in their hands.

Armin was the one who told her that.

**—o—**

Following her heart is not something Mikasa has had very much practice in. But she figures she can start learning how to now. Better late than never, right?

She trudges diligently through the snow, her heeled boots striking the stone path leading out of the park, the icy asphalt of the streets, the cracked cement of old pavement. She wanders on the feet that have carried her through jumps and leaps and endless pirouettes, a dancer that no longer dances with her body, that just now becomes devoted to dancing with her spirit, allowing it to follow the litanous murmurs of her heart’s songs.

This way, it whispers.

That way, it leads.

And onward, without question, Mikasa simply follows.

She giggles with abandon, liking this new dance. When the whole world’s your map, there’s no end to the possible destinations. She could hail a cab and leave the city, catch a plane and leave the country. With the entire world stretched freely below her feet, where will she go? Where will she go?

“To the stars,” she voices aloud, smiling. Onward, to the stars. Blue and green and gold, they shimmer. Blue and green and gold, they glow. The colors of the universe. The colors of her sky. Her steps grow mighty with renewed purpose. Her arms sway back and forth, her new ballet, flitting to the symphony of her life. Tap, tap, tap, her steps drum on the sidewalk, the whistling of the wind tickling the lobes of her ears, the tip of her nose, the rosy apples of her cheeks. Bam, bam, the city clamors, the trumpet of a car horn blasting through the air, filling the spaces around her, thawing the chill of the winter air that lingers on her skin. The sky soars and sings above her, a cleansed deep blue purged from a full day of snow. Purified. Like her.

To the stars, Mikasa ventures. To the stars, she moves and breathes and walks. And it is then that her hand finds a door handle, that she billows, sighs, and pulls. And a small bell jingles, announcing her arrival. She’s here. The music swells in a crescendo, her heart skittering in her chest, and, at once, the colors burst to life. She takes a step, two, crosses the threshold where white meets gold and gray meets green and black turns to a blue so profound it drowns her, the iridescent air all full and luminous around her when a familiar voice crashes against the silence with, “Mikasa?”

And she’s dancing out in space, prancing among the milkyway.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

With a gracious bow, the dance is over. She is here. It is final.

She is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading! Be sure to leave a review and message me on tumblr, I really appreciate it a lot. Take care <3


	20. Love And All Its Meanings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad to finally have a more Armin-heavy chapter, it was about time! Also, I wanted to say that the story is nearing its completion, as there will be 35 chapters in total and, well, depending on the speed on which I write, we could be looking at the ending by this year or the next. Having that said, enjoy!

 

Too much had changed.

Mikasa’s body betrayed her. Somewhere along the line, it had decided to rebel. She was fourteen and terribly confused, unable to understand how it was that her breasts went from being two teeny bumps to mounds that overflowed from a cupped hand practically overnight. How it was that her hips had stretched sideways and her butt perked and swelled to the point where her pants did not fit her anymore. And all these sudden changes did not escape Mama’s eye. She gaped in awe and admiration, exclaiming that she could not fathom where Mikasa inherited such virtues from. It was from Dad’s side of the family, they’d decided. Yeah. Just blame it all on him.

Ballet became ten times harder when standing on pointe meant bearing the added weight of what her classmates liked to call “thunder thighs” and a “bubble butt” and thank god her breasts weren’t offensive enough to earn their own nickname, but those were pretty cumbersome too. Because galloping about became tedious when her chest leapt and bounced and hindered the fluidity of her movements, when her butt practically tore her tights open and her hips were too large to give off the illusion of a smooth curve when she bent sideways, emitting an awkward edge that jutted out from both sides.

Her peers offered advice, and Mikasa was introduced to the concept of dieting for the first time in her life. They told her to give up chocolate (pfft, like that would ever happen). She did not know what macros were or what sugar did to the insulin resistance in her body or any of that shebang her fellow ballerinas droned on about. They were all long and willowy and curveless, so how could they understand? Puberty seemed to have missed them. Among the fleet of perfect little tutus, Mikasa’s new body stuck out like a sore thumb.

Eren changed, too. He didn’t need braces anymore, so his teeth were straight and shiny and pretty. He liked to show them off a lot, liked to flash them at girls and at teachers accompanied by the mischievous little twinkle of his eyes when he knew he’d gotten into trouble. He still liked to stick it to the man and play soccer and practice songs on his guitar, so not much had changed except that his voice got deeper and his body got stronger and muscles began to ripple and protrude across the expanses of his body, and rumors began spreading about that he’d lost his virginity. Yep, that’s right. His virginity. At fourteen!

The other girls all crooned and sighed over him, fanning their necks at the thought of savoring his succulent, boyish lips. The sight always made Mikasa gag. And to think she’d kissed those very lips they all thirsted for. And once, accidentally, she’d caught a glimpse of his bare ass when he was getting out of the shower. So, in a way, she felt proud to be a step ahead of all the other girls, but upon realizing her emotions, she quickly shooed them away. That’s gross, she told herself. And she wasn’t like Sarah and all the others. They all glorified Eren and the little dimples at the small of his back and the fact that he had freckles and a scar on his eyebrow they thought he got like some sort of battle wound (he fell on his face trying to skid on carpet with socks, truth be told) and they thought that him wearing glasses because he can’t read without them was so adorable when, in fact, Mikasa knew he needed them because he messed up his vision during a really bad fight. The moron. Gosh.

Mikasa was certain that, despite what all the other girls said, Eren had as much charm as a toenail. He didn’t know what flirting was or what a boob looked like or that half the school wanted to date him. This all led Mikasa to believe that the rumors of him losing his virginity had to be false. The boy can barely walk straight! How is he supposed to know how to… well, you know.

Armin, however, somehow managed to still look the same. He’d only grown a couple of inches since elementary school and he still sported the same hairstyle he had since he was four years old. Not one to care for looks though, he devoted his time to learning. Armin really loved learning. About the stars, cosmos, anything to do with outer space—or the “outside world” as he liked to call it. He often took Eren and Mikasa out on trips to the meadow in the woods near their houses in the middle of the night to gaze at the sky, pointing out this and that constellation, telling stories of how this specific array of stars earned their name, what legend came attached to it, and so on. He was brilliant. With a smile, Mikasa always acknowledged this fact, knowing that her little friend would go far in life.

That is, if his illness let him.

You see, throughout the years, Mikasa got bigger, Eren got stronger, and Armin got sicker. He never told Eren and Mikasa the name of his disease, as if declaring it would make it that much realer somehow. But it didn’t take a genius to know that it was permanent. That he was sick, really sick. Always.

Armin was perpetually ill, and this disturbed his friends immensely, especially since he began to lose his hearing. Eren was especially distressed by this. Why did all the people he loved have to be sick, he’d wondered. Mikasa had to remind him that she wasn’t ill. He’d smiled real bright at that. But it hadn’t lasted long.

With growing up, and having boobs and a butt and thighs and new hips, came love. At least, the idea of it did. Mikasa wasn’t very fond of the topic herself, but when Mama sat her down one time and decided to torture her through a session of the dreaded sex talk, she’d told her that she’s coming of age. Coming of age, Mikasa’d thought. Coming of age for what? To have sex? Yeah, right. She wasn’t made for that sort of thing. Perhaps Eren and Sarah Hale and all the other kids in her class were, but Mikasa wasn’t.

Besides, it’s not like anybody liked her.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel somewhat left out when school dances and Valentine’s Day rolled by and everybody had dates and gifts and even Eren, who had chortled at the affluent stream of love letters that poured out of his locker once he’d opened it, seemed to have his own share of secret admirers. But when Mikasa had opened her own locker all that came out was dust. Just the phantom wheeze of a cavernous, empty locker.

“Jeez,” Armin said beside her. “Don’t you at least keep books in there, Mikasa?”

She blinked at the emptiness. “No. I prefer to carry them.”

Her friend had to sigh at that. He knew what it was to get bullied, and even though nobody tempered with Mikasa’s locker anymore, she’d gotten used to hauling all of her belongings around after getting harassed for so long. Armin could relate. He was constantly finding books missing, pages torn out of his notebooks, nasty messages scribbled on the inside of his locker door, all that fun stuff.

“Nothing,” Mikasa whispered to herself. Armin raised his brows.

“What?” he said. “Were you expecting a Valentine’s Day card or something?”

“I don’t know,” she answered candidly. “Just something, I guess.”

She looked at her friend. He stared back at her.

“Why do I care?” she asked him, as if caring were some terrible disease she’d been plagued with. As if he held the cure.

“You’re a girl,” Armin told her simply. “It’s only natural, I suppose.”

Then she turned to face him, slamming her locker door shut. The boom of it seemed to echo, reverberating within its empty walls. It suddenly occurred to her that she’d grown much taller than her old friend. She peered down at him, smiling. “So… another year of being each other’s valentines, Armin. What do you say?”

Sky blue eyes shone up at her with much delight. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Cool. May we be socially inept and romantically uninvolved forever.”

Armin laughed. It was a yelpy, breathy sort of laugh. Mikasa loved it.

“Alright, Mik. Let’s go to class.”

So they did. And Mikasa tried hard, very hard, to ignore the sight of Eren perched against the wall by Sarah Hale’s locker, chatting away with one of her friends, his school bag dangling from his one shoulder, a crooked smile slanting his mouth. Oblivious. So damn oblivious.

Mikasa knew he didn’t like Sarah Hale, and couldn’t stand the fact that she was always at his tail. But his mom had taught him to be a gentlemen, he’d reasoned once. So he tried his hardest to be pleasant with her, even if sometimes his words came out through gritted teeth. He didn’t mind her friends though, and they certainly didn’t mind him.

And so, walking away from the scene, Mikasa nudged Armin on the arm and he looked up at her, smiled. She told herself that she had the best valentine of them all.

She didn’t see how Eren kept on staring.

**—o—**

The soccer ball rolled back and forth, side to side, between the scrambling of Eren’s feet. He kicked it up in the air and bounced it against his chest, letting it land on the ground before giving it one hard kick with his foot that sent it flying, catapulting it into the large net that groaned as it caught the mighty blow.

“Goal!” he triumphed, throwing his hands in the air.

Sitting alone on the bleachers, Armin brought his hands together in a series of tiny claps.

“Good job, Eren!”

“What number is that?”

“Ten.”

“Goal number ten?”

“Yep!”

“Fuck yes! Ten in a row! I’m on fire!” He gave his little victory dance, an odd mixture of salsa and some form of tango that brought his hands up to his waist and made his feet move in all sorts of awkward zig-zaggy ways. The boy couldn’t dance to save his life. Armin had to laugh.

“My hero,” he crooned sarcastically. Eren gave a gracious bow.

“Thank you, thank you,” he waved to the invisible crowd. “I’ll be here all day, folks.”

Armin rolled his eyes just as Eren began to make his way towards him instead of the ball. He was shirtless, and Armin observed the way a line of muscle indented right above his shoulder, how the curve of his spine ran down his back. His taut chest gave way to the ripples of his abdomen, where a v-shape led downward along a thin thatch of auburn hair and disappeared into his shorts, all cajoling Armin to sigh to himself with mild envy.

His own body was a sad assembly of lanky limbs and a scrawny torso, which he thought gave off the illusion that his head was too big for the rest of him. All sorts of disproportioned, Armin was glad that he had nice eyes, at least. They were his saving grace with the ladies (haha, joke). But, of course, with his golden blue-green irises, Eren seemed to have beat him at that too. Even that.

Eren was better than him at everything.

“So,” the shirtless, sweaty boy said suddenly, plopping by his side. “How’s your Valentine’s Day going? Do anything crazy?”

“You know better than anyone I don’t ever do crazy.”

“Nonsense. You are the epitome of crazy.”

Armin sighed. There wasn’t even a tinge of seriousness in Eren’s tone that hinted he’d meant that.

“Mikasa and I are each other’s valentines, if that implies anything reckless or spontaneous.”

“What? Again?”

“It’s our yearly tradition.”

Eren grinned, his smile shrinking his eyes, a tiny hole denting the skin of his cheek. “Did you get her anything special?”

Armin shrugged. “Just her homework.”

“Ah. A true ladies man, you are.”

A mumble. “Thanks.”

Then Eren did that really nasty thing guys do where they snort all intimate and deep in the backs of their throats and shoot out a large wad of saliva into the air and to the ground. Armin heard it land with a hard, wet splat. He grimaced, horrified.

“Dude, that’s disgusting.”

Eren only grinned again.

They talked. About mindless things like the weather and super important things like Mikasa and the fact that Eren managed to score ten great scores (nine, actually, but Armin let him think that the one incident where the ball had hit the railing instead of the net didn’t count as foul).

Another thing Eren was better at than Armin was generally anything remotely physical. Whereas he carried himself coyly and with the awkward grace of a socially inept being, Eren was comfortable enough in his skin to just _be_. You could see it in the way he talked, how he walked, just how he carried himself. He didn’t give a damn what others thought of him and that radiated such a calm aura from him. It’s no wonder everyone fell for him, despite his own belief that he was a repellant. Eren was that kind of person people admired from afar and marveled at up close, but nobody dared ever get close enough to touch him. He was too baffling. Too pure.

And Eren wasn’t sick either.

He wasn’t losing his hearing because cancer had begun to grow in his right ear. And he didn’t have this secret to keep quiet, because illnesses are so damn loud. How does one undergo surgery to remove a tumor in their belly and keep that quiet? How does one find out three years later that they developed nasopharyngeal cancer and that their hearing would be the first thing to go and keep calm? How do they suppress that? Stifle it?

Eren was strong and taut and muscular and healthy. And handsome. And smart. And Armin was ill and scared and dwindling. But he did not tell anyone, for he simply couldn’t. They’d treat him as the sick one, the cancer patient, and Armin wanted to be treated like a person, a human. Like a man. For disease had a way of stealing one’s integrity. Of shrinking you into the colorless remnant of a once vibrant soul.

He was already enough of a burden as it was, he told himself.

Someday, he would confess to his friends. But so long as the chemo didn’t cause his hair to fall out and his nosebleeds were under control and Grandpa kept quiet, he could go on hiding it for a bit longer. Go on being Armin Arlert until then.

“Eren,” he voiced eventually,  interrupting the boy who’d gone on a stupor about his favorite sport, “there’s rumors going around about you.”

He only scoffed.“When aren’t there rumors going around about me?”

“These are bad.”

“Do they involve Mikasa?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t care.”

“Eren,” Armin shook his head. The sun outside was beginning to decrease in fervor, whispering its final breaths throughout the sky in an array of deep, velvety colors. He stared deep into Eren’s eyes. They seemed to reflect the same iridescent richness that went on in the heavens above. “It’s really bad. People are saying you had sexual intercouse with Sarah Hale.”

Eren laughed out loud, his head tipping back, a hand flying to his stomach. “I didn’t have sexual _intercourse_ with that air head,” he wheezed between chortles. Armin only frowned.

“What did you have, then?”

“Sex.”

“Sex?!”

“But not with Sarah.”

“With who?”

“Don’t remember her name. She’s a senior. Real tall. Kinda goth-looking.”

Armin slapped a hand to his own face, groaning. “Eren, oh my god.”

His smile was gone by then, cheeks scratched red from all the energy he had expelled laughing. Breathless, he said, “What?”

“So you just… You had sex?”

“Yeah?”

“Just like that?”

Eren went into detail—far too much detail, if you asked Armin—about exactly what had happened. He’d been hanging out with a couple of seniors at a park when one of them, the cutest one apparently, had joined him in the back seat. The others left to smoke their cigarettes, and the two were left alone. That’s when the kissing happened. Lots of it. And in a tangle of panted breaths and frenzied hands and flushing skins, she’d hopped on his lap and pulled a condom out from her bra and, well, popped his cherry as he said it went.

Despite Eren’s casual attitude about the whole ordeal, Armin was dumbfounded. How could he just have sex? Just like that? And at this age? With a girl so much older than him? It just… It wasn’t like Eren to behave this way at all. He wasn’t promiscuous, he wasn’t a horn-ball—even if raging hormones did come with the hefty package of growing up. It just wasn’t like him.

So why did he do it?

“To feel something, I suppose,” was Eren’s answer. “I just wanted to feel something.”

“And…” Armin started, cautious with his words. “Did it work?”

Eren smiled, but his words were laced with disappointment. “Nah, Armin. Honestly? It wasn’t even that great. I don’t get what the big deal is. Yeah, it felt good, but it’s not like my eyes were about to pop out from how awesome it was or anything. I didn’t see colors or Jesus or whatever. It was simple. Just… sex.”

Armin could only bring himself to sigh again. How could sex be just sex? This was another thing that led him to believe that he was a weirdo. Armin felt no physical attraction towards anyone. Ever. In his fourteen years of life, he’d never had a crush or fancied holding anyone’s hand, kissing anyone’s lips, having sex with anybody. His hobbies excited him more than people did. So what was wrong with him? Was he ill in the head too? Were his hormones damaged also? Was he born with a body that liked to defy him? What?

“What’s the big deal?” Eren exclaimed suddenly, noticing his expression. “It’s just sex!”

“Does Mikasa know?”

“Why should she?”

“Well, I mean, I don’t know.”

Eren inhaled sharply, his naked chest swelling, glistening with sweat. “I don’t think she’d be too happy to hear that I lost my virginity to a high school senior. Specially lately.” He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, plastering it to the top of his head. It poked out in damp, jagged spikes. “God, she’s being such a mom.”

Armin’s eyes went all serious and sad, voice shrinking to a whisper. “You know what’s going on in her house, Eren.”

Which made Eren sigh guiltily. “I know.”

“She’s just protective. She feels like she’s losing her parents; we’re all she has left. I think you should tell her, especially now.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s your best friend, dude.”

“You’re my best friend.”

“So is she.”

“She will— No. I’m not gonna.”

“Eren.”

Something told him that they weren’t even talking about the same thing. Armin seemed to be pushing him about something else entirely. Uncertain, Eren let the topic marinate for a moment, rolling his tongue against the inside of his cheek.

Finally, he said, “I don’t want her to think of me like that. I’m scared she’ll judge me.”

“She’s Mikasa. She wouldn’t ever think ill of you.”

“I know. But I still worry.”

“Why?”

He ran both hands through his hair. Messed it up more. “Because she’s all… gah, never mind.”

Armin squinted at him. “Tell me.”

Eren straightened, his chest rising with a swift intake of air. For a moment, he looked as if he was going to spill out a torrent of sentences. But all he did was deflate and rise to his feet before turning to walk away with an insipid, “I gotta go.”

This agitated his friend immensely. Rising as well, Armin towered over him as he descended the bleachers. He’s standing at the very bottom when Armin proclaimed, “Eren! Stop running away.”

This made him stop.

His back to Armin, he could see how his best friend tensed, the muscles of his back coiled tight.

“I’m not running away.”

Armin hardly heard him. But then Eren turned around. He turned around and his cheeks were ruddy with anger and his fists were clenched and he said it again.

“I am _not_ running away.”

“You are, Eren,” Armin countered quickly. The wind tossed his hair and ruffled his clothing, chilled the sweat on Eren’s skin so that it quickly disappeared. “Ever since your mom died—”

“Watch your mouth!”

“—you’ve been hiding from us, Eren. Tell her the truth!”

They were both raising their voices. Their words echoed through the vacant soccer field, the tumbling wind, the clouds.

“I don’t what to tell her I fucked a senior,” Eren exhorted angrily. Armin only shook his head, affirming the fact that they weren’t both talking about the same thing.

“Not that, Eren. Not that.”

“Then what?”

“The truth.” And then Armin descended the bleachers slowly. He was standing in front of Eren then, a foot taller as he remained planted on the bleacher in front of him. Despite Eren’s look of displeasure, his friend continued gently. “I think she’d really love to hear that.” And he watched as Eren’s eyes widened at that, as if he’d discovered his darkest secret. Still, he voiced, “Tell her how you feel, Eren.”

His bangs blew across his eyes, hiding his scowl as it gradually softened. He ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it away from his face, casting his gaze to the side. His voice was soft. So soft Armin barely heard him. “She’s so—” A pause. “She’s just so perfect and I’m so…” Green eyes lifted to meet blue ones. They were dismal, wistful. “Me.”

He said it as if it were a bad thing. He said it as if Armin didn’t spend each waking moment wishing he were him. Him instead of this. Him instead of sick. Him instead of weak and soft and meek and pathetic.

“You can do it,” Armin whispered.

“I can’t,” Eren whispered back.

“Eren, you’ve loved her since you were nine. She should know.”

“I already told her I love her. Many times.”

“Not like that. You know what I’m talking about.”

Eren opened his mouth. Closed it. Exhaled through his nose. He wore the look of a defeated man. But Armin wondered how that could be, for he had hardly fought. Not for Mikasa. Not for what he truly wanted and felt deep inside.

For a moment, Eren contemplated denying it, negating his feelings for her, feelings that both appalled and confused him. That kept him up at night. That Armin already knew about. Knew that she was the first thing he thought about when he woke up and the last thing to cross his mind before bed. Knew that before he lost his virginity to Erica or Sofia or whatever that girl’s name was all he pictured was Mikasa. Mikasa’s face. Mikasa’s breasts. Mikasa panting. And it’s a sickness, a plague he bore with the shame of a pariah. How could he think this way of her? How could he play soccer or practice songs on his guitar or dar or talk to people and eat food and breathe when all he thought about was Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa. How? How did Armin know? Was it that obvious? Oh, god.

He wore his secret on his skin. For a second, Armin believed he would deny it. Deny the fact that she made his knees weak and made his hands tingle with the need to touch her but the fear that he would dirty her if he did, tarnish her perfection. That he sat at their bench in the mornings waiting for their school bus with his leg bouncing up and down in anticipation because he couldn’t wait to see her. Because his days didn’t start until he saw that face. Those eyes. Those lips. That pretty little nose of hers. And they didn’t end until he walked her home, heard her voice morph and shape around the vowels of his name. They started and ended with her. He started and ended with her. He could hardly think of his life before she came into it.

“What if I freak her out?” he voiced finally. Armin didn’t even flinch.

“What if you don’t?”

“What if I scare her?”

“What if you don’t, Eren?”

“She can’t possibly… What if she doesn’t feel it too, Armin?”

“But what if she does?” He stood so close that Eren could feel his breath on his face. Gazing up at him, he marveled at the fire in his eyes, how fervently they smoldered when he rapped, “Life is so short, Eren. So precious. And it’s just passing us by. God doesn’t care, our world was built without enough time in it, that’s all we have. You have to take your chances and seize them, make the most of every emotion that you feel. It’s such a gift to feel, Eren. To love someone. Share it. It isn’t about just sex, just kissing, just kicking soccer balls and scoring points. There’s so much more, and it’s all so precious. Share your emotions, Eren. Share the life in you. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Frozen, Eren stared at his best friend. After what felt like a long time, he asked him, “Are you okay?”

Armin blinked. “What?”

“You’re talking weird.” he laughed, as if Armin had just invented everything. Him losing his virginity. His feelings for Mikasa. This conversation. “Armin, I think you need to take your meds.” He placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. “Maybe take a nap?”

And he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand. He didn’t see that those were the words of a dying boy, that him being with Mikasa was his final wish, if anything. Because Armin lived each day as if it were his last—it very well could be. Spoke as if each word were his last. Breathed as if his air was limited.

Because his time was limited.

But Eren didn't know, for he had endless years ahead of him. And it wasn’t his fault. Poor Eren. He just couldn’t blame him, for he couldn’t possibly understand that if there were one thing Armin could do right in the time he had left, it would be to see his loved ones happy. Mom and Dad were gone. Gramps was diminishing. The only people he had left were Eren and Mikasa. And it hurt him to have this conversation, it really did, with how it was turning out. Because why couldn’t Eren just cooperate? Grow a pair of balls and realize that not everyone had the luxury of denying themselves their emotions with the illusion of plentiful time? Some of us run on full speed instead of neutral, burning with the vehemence of a flame that knows it will soon extinguish, evaporate. So quickly. So simply. As if it were never even there at all.  

He figured that the best way to love his friends was to not burden them with the truth.

So he lied.

“Maybe I just do,” Armin said sadly, brushing his hand off his shoulder, brushing everything away. Just as easily as he’d seemed to spring alive, he dimmed to a quiet, benevolent creature. Slowly, he climbed up the bleachers to retrieve his stuff.

“Yeah,” Eren said, watching him collect his homework and his school bag. He still wore his school uniform, and Eren almost felt bad for dragging him into the field after school to watch him play, for dodging him the way he just did. He parted his lips to apologize, ask his buddy if he was okay. But something stopped him. The way Armin carried himself now, it stopped him.

“See you later, Eren.” And just like that, he left.

Eren couldn’t fight the feeling that something was amiss, that there were things he wasn’t telling him. The sky was being governed by dusk by the time he thought to open his mouth and call after him. But then, Armin made a turn and vanished. He was gone.

“See ya,” Eren whispered to no one, wondering how it was that his friends could go from calm to manic in seconds, from being here to being gone. Just like that. Gone.

It scared him.

**—o—**

As soon as Mikasa got home, she heard it.

Mama and Papa were fighting again. It seemed to be the only thing they ever did these days. Papa hardly ever raised his voice, usually it was Mama who did most of the screaming, but this time they were both going at it. Good for them, she thought. They’re equals now.

That was sarcasm, by the way.

Without a word, Mikasa made a beeline up the stairs and straight to her bedroom. She was quick to close the door—careful to make the least amount of noise possible—and shed her shoes and leotard and tights, tossing them all into the hamper before darting into her bathroom to take a shower.  

Under its pelting rain, she let the steaming droplets pound away at her skin. Wash it all away. Wash away the fear, the anger, the confusion that came with having two angry parents. Things had seemed so fine this morning too. Mama and Papa had even kissed. But now look at how they gnawed and clawed at one another with their poisonous words, as if their marriage vows to be gentle to each other were made of plastic, easily malleable, meltable. Trash.

The water ran down her neck, back, legs, her feet, and for a moment she just stood there. Stood there until it felt like her skin would melt. And it felt good to be in this kind of pain, to have her skin flare up and turn red from the heat and she wondered if this is what love was like, if being married meant standing in the fire and accepting it willingly, wearing a smile as it ate away at your flesh.

Mikasa thought briefly of her ideas of love when she was little. At that age, nothing seemed purer, more exciting. She thought of when Eren had first kissed her, when she first met him, when they first held hands under the dinner table when Carla wasn’t looking, their little fingers laced together with promise and trust. And there was nothing to it, really. Just two souls enjoying each other’s company, and Mikasa remembered how she’d felt then, as if the sky and earth and ocean and everything in the world were eternal. As if even the stars above were held in space by their love for the moon, her love for Eren. And she’d thought that she would marry him someday. Because who else? Who else would she ever dream to hold hands with? To kiss? To spend the rest of her life with?

She’s been frequenting his house more after school, and she’s never told him why. Because her need to be beside him sometimes scared her. Because running away from her home and her parents made her feel weak. He granted her safety amid the madness of the world. And Mama and Papa fought so much. Mikasa would’ve rather been in his home where there was no one but the two of them and everything was quiet, where Eren would always take naps as she did her homework and wouldn’t wake when she held her ear to his chest just to hear his heartbeat, to feel it and remember that although the world was cruel there was still hope in it, still beauty in it, still some vibrant shards of light that radiated off the kind smiles of her best friend, off his shiny eyes and the ferocious way he felt all of his emotions and how his heart kept beating and beating despite all the pain it hard endured throughout the years. Human resilience was mesmerizing. It amazed her how we seem to prevail, despite all the anguish.

She stood in the shower for what felt like ages, until her knees felt too weak to carry her, and then she shut off the water and got out. Upon catching her naked reflection in the mirror, she stared for some time. She looked so much like her mother. She’d inherited her gentle almond eyes, her dark night hair, her pallid skin and rosy cheeks and that family trademark of a nose that shot upwards in an impossible point. Upon observing her own reflection, Mikasa suddenly felt sad. How could two beings that loved each other enough to create her fight so much now? Was love truly that fragile? That weak? Didn’t it make the earth spin and the clouds stroll and the moon shine and the waves crash against the shore with the promise of always coming back?

What was love, anyway?

She hung the towel on the wall and got dressed, brushed her hair, slunk into bed and hugged Ningyo to her chest, ignoring the way she seemingly buried into her burgeoning bosom. She squeezed her eyes shut, Mama and Papa’s voice echoing in the distance, ringing on the walls, prowling into the depths of her own head.

Love is kind, she told herself.

Love is pure, she reminded.

Love never shatters, it never dies. It never dies.

And then she heard a loud thud. For a second, she froze, gasping. She thought it had been Mama or Papa hurling household items at one another (it had happened once before). But then she heard it again, and realized that it came from her window. Sharp taps that popped every few seconds or so. A small rock hurled against the window pane.

She smiled, for she knew immediately who it was.

“Hello, Eren,” she voiced quietly after opening her window, gazing  down at him as he grinned up at her from all the way down on the grass.

“Oh, Juliet, Juliet,” he said dramatically, swaying his arms and placing both hands on his heart. “Wherefore art thou, Juliet?”

“You’ve got it backwards,” she smiled. Eren only kept on grinning.

“Can I come up?”

“Yeah. But be quiet.”

“Your parents at it again?” It was more of a statement than a question, and she feared that he could hear them all the way from outside.

“Yes.” He didn’t hear her add: “When aren’t they?” as he made his way up the side of her house, climbing up the windows until he reached hers.

“Hold up,” she told him before he could enter her room, stopping him. She ran to her closet and plucked out a sweater, pulling it over her pyjamas before slinking out the window to join him at the roof of her house, shutting it quietly behind her as if she could block the rage, the violence, keep it from spilling out through the cracks of her home and into the night where they were safe. “Let’s sit outside tonight,” she told him, which made him frown.

But Eren didn’t say anything. Maybe he knew that she wanted to be outside instead of in, as if allowing him into her home meant destroying his ideals of love also. She didn’t know that after losing a mother and having a father that was barely ever home, Eren had given up on the idea of love a very long time ago.

Perhaps that was why it frightened him so much.

The night was cool and calm. The moon full, stars twinkling quietly around it. Fat, black-gray clouds rolled on by, sometimes shadowing the luminous glow of the nighttime sky. A big one was hiding the brilliant spherule above them by the time Mikasa and Eren were sitting comfortably on the roof, the wind whispering on their skins, drying Mikasa’s damp hair, curling it around her ears and neck and cheeks.

“So,” Eren said finally, shifting so that his butt didn’t ache as much. Sitting on a roof was always so damn uncomfortable. “I heard you were Armin’s valentine today.”

Mikasa gave a tiny smile. “Yeah. We do it every year.”

“I heard.”

“I miss him.”

“I do too. And we just saw him today, isn’t that crazy?”

They both smiled, but that was quick to fade. Mikasa seemed very serious, all of a sudden. She gazed down at her bare feet, holding her knees to her chest. Illuminated by moonlight, she looked almost ethereal. Unreal.

“I feel like something’s wrong with him, Eren,” she said.

Eren shrugged. “He’s sick.”

“I know, but something tells me he’s more than sick. He’s ill. Very ill.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I think he’s dying, Eren.”

At that, he tensed, swallowing a clump of air. “Don’t even say that.” And he sounded almost mad, his voice so thin it scared her.

Mikasa lifted her eyes to look at him, and it suddenly hit her like a wave. She wanted to cry. The rock in her throat hardened. She just wanted to cry, to let it all spill out, to no longer have to hold it all in and be so strong. She was so damn tired of being strong. Because she had grown too fast, they had grown too fast, the world had grown too fast. Time had sparrowed by and now her body was different and everything was different and Mama and Papa fought whereas once they hardly ever did and she hadn’t had enough time to accept the changes, to prepare herself for their fatal blows.

Her parents’ love was dying and so was her little friend. She could see it when he winced, when he coughed copiously until he could no longer breathe, when he vomited blood out of nowhere and fainted and she had to repeat herself because he couldn’t hear her and when twin streams of crimson spilled from his nostrils. How does one love something that’s dying? Pray for the flame to flicker on as it dies away? She wished love was enough to save people. But she knew that even fervent prayer was not sufficient, for Carla had vanished from her life as quickly as she’d swept into it. And yet she still prayed—prayed with everything in her—that Armin and her parents’ relationship would not go the same way, for she wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“You’re right,” she whispered finally. “I’m sorry.”

She wouldn’t look at him. For a beat, Eren contemplated barging into her room and running downstairs to stifle her parents’ quarrel. Jesus, he could hear them all the way from out here. But he chose instead to be gentle, to ratchet his demeanor down to the gentle way he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, the soft look of surprise in her eyes when they rose to meet him.

“Hey,” he breathed gently, his fingers grazing her earlobe. “Come with me to our meadow. I have a surprise for you there.”

Mikasa’s brows scrunched. “A surprise? What is it?”

Eren smirked. He pulled his hand away from her with as much difficulty as if he were fighting the gravitational force of her body.

“If I told you,” he said, “it wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?”

“Eren…”

“Cool. Let’s go!”

He hopped off the roof and to the ground below. Mikasa gasped, nearly calling after him when she remembered to keep her voice down, hissing, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Come on,” he grinned, motioning her to join him. “We have to go!”

“But…” She gazed around. “How will I get down?”

“Jump!”

“What?!”

“Jump. I’ll catch you.”

“Eren, oh my god, no.”

“Come on!”

“No!”

“Miki…” he grinned. She could see his dimple all the way from where she was. “Please.” And only her family called her Miki. Yet she couldn’t help relishing in the way his voice sounded when he’d said it. “Do you trust me?”

Of course she did. If she trusted anyone in the world—if she held hope for anyone, it was for you, Eren Jaeger.

“I trust you,” she voiced quietly. And his voice was just as soft when he spoke again. Just as fragile.

“Jump.”

Tentatively, she gazed behind her. For a moment, she contemplated turning back, just crawling back to bed and pretending this night never happened, as she always did when her parents fought. But then it occurred to her that love meant taking risks. That it meant trusting. So she tightened her sweater around her frame, rose to her feet, traipsed to the edge of the roof and without a thought, lunged out into the air and onto Eren’s waiting arms. Thank God her house wasn’t that tall and she could land safely without killing him. He caught her with a grunt and they rolled on the grass from the impact, giggling like a pair of maniacs as they crawled to their feet. Then Eren grabbed her hand and they sprinted into the woods, to their meadow, where unknown mysteries lurked, waiting to be discovered.

And as her bare feet struck the cool, damp ground, happy steps thumping with every yelp and squeal that left her mouth, Mikasa felt that sometimes love meant allowing herself to grow wings and dare to soar. She remained planted on the earth, and yet, with Eren by her side, squeezing her hand and smiling at her through the darkness of the night among the gently lit tendrils of nature, it felt very much like she was flying.

**—o—**

They laid on the grass with Armin. That was her surprise, you see. The boy. And Mikasa wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Armin and Eren had already begun their ritualistic sleepovers, even though summer was still a couple of months away. And thus, because they had been bored and Armin had already finished all his homework and Eren couldn’t be bothered to start his, they decided to go stargazing to cheer Mikasa up. Somehow, they’d predicted that her parents would be fighting. On Valentine’s day.

There was something so gratifying about outer space. Mikasa loved the way nature just was, unperturbed, unencumbered. It grew and thrived and respired. She loved the way it could just be, how the moon knew the precise distance it needed to keep from the planet and how the stars kept on shining even long after they’d died. She wished to be that way, to be remembered for her light long after perishing.

It wasn’t often that Mikasa thought of death, but when she did, she always seemed to picture Armin.

“And that one over there is called Ursa Major,” he said happily, pointing up at a line of stars in the sky. They were lying on their backs with their heads nearly touching in a circle. Eren gave a loud chuckle, and Mikasa smiled at the blissful noise.

“I don’t get constellations,” he’d said. “What makes people come up with these names? If I were an astrologist, I’d name a star Mac n’ Cheese.”

Mikasa laughed out loud.

Armin sighed. “Jesus, Eren.”

And then he went on and on about the outside world, how a planet six times the size of ours was found some lightyears away with the exact same conditions and potential for life. He wondered if it was populated, and swore to someday work with NASA and venture out of this world. Mikasa was listening intently, with the happiness that comes with witnessing someone you love talk about their passions, when she felt something warm and gentle brush her fingertips and make her breathing stop.

It was Eren.

Quietly, as Armin spoke, he held her hand in his. It was such a benign, petty gesture. They’d been holding hands since they were kids. But now everything had changed. Because now he harbored feelings that boiled deep within him, that bubbled and threatened to overflow.

She gave his hand a squeeze, and he felt a jolt of electricity run all the way up his arm, to his neck, jaw, ear, into his brain. It zapped all rational thoughts away. At that instant, he felt tempted to break the silence they’d fallen into with a single utterance of eight letters, three words. I love you, he wanted to tell her. I love you, Mikasa. But his sudden shortness of breath stopped him. He couldn’t possibly do it, despite everything Armin had said. For now, he’d just have to go on being Eren. Go on being the one who’d lost his virginity only because he wanted to feel something, a wild burst, a frenzy of just… anything. Yet there was no one that made him feel as much as her. No one who spurred his brain and addled his thoughts quite like she did.

Mikasa had closed her eyes.

So he watched her.

He counted each individual eyelash, wondering what they might feel like against his lips. He wallowed on the bends and edges of her face, how her chin protruded then sank down along her jaw, giving way to her long, slender throat, which lead to her chest and the two humble swells of her breasts beneath her pyjamas. Something tickled in his gut as he watched her, and a sliver of skin poked out from under her sweater, just below her navel, where her hipbones jutted out sharply and her stomach sank into the v between her legs. He already knew what was down there, but something convinced him that Mikasa was different. That the childish sweetness of her breath radiated off the fruity perfume of her skin, that her flesh was much softer and smoother than anyone else’s, that her body was carved gentler, better, finer than the rest.

Then Eren closed his eyes as well, and prayed that Armin was right. That someday he’d be brave enough to tell her. But for now, this moment was enough. Holding her was enough. Listening to her breathing and Armin’s stories as the stars hung close above them and the wind caused them all to huddle close was alright, it was enough. He thought that maybe his entire life had led him to his point. Every step he’d ever taken guided him to this very moment, where being with his two best friends meant finding a small measure of peace among the garbled wreck of his life.

He was young and lost but, at that moment, he was happy. So happy. And he hoped that the girl with the black eyes and blades of grass sticking to her clothes was happy too. She laid her head on his arm and moved ever closer, to the point where he could feel the heat radiating off her body meshing with his own. And his arm had gone numb but he didn’t dare to move it. Because perhaps that was what love was, discarding his own happiness to ensure hers.

Yeah, he thought with a smile. That sounds about right.

**—o—**

Mikasa came back home just as the clock struck two in the morning. It amazed her that she’d been out for so long, but, infused in the high of her recent adventure, still relishing in the aftermath of the company of her two best friends, she couldn't seem to bring herself to care.

She chose to enter through the front door, surprised to find it unlocked. Tip-toeing through the house, she jumped when the kitchen light suddenly turned on.

Mikasa stiffened, winding up even tighter when she heard her mother call her name.

“Mikasa?”

Poop. She was going to be in big trouble.

“Yes, Mama?”

“Come here.”

Mama’s voice was small and raspy. It wasn’t until Mikasa appeared in the kitchen that she saw her mother had been crying. This both shocked and alarmed her. Something was terribly wrong. Mama hardly ever cried. Mikasa had only seen her weep twice in her entire lifetime.

“Sit,” her mother told her, motioning to the empty seat in front of her.

Without a word, Mikasa slunk through the kitchen and sat across from her mother on the small kitchen table they’d owned since her birth. The entire home remained the exact same way it had always been since she was little. Even her bedroom and bathroom were still pink and adorned with pastel, baby-ish colors. Not much had changed at her house, everything seemed to remain the same, only the home’s inhabitants grew and shifted with the seasons. With each terrible, fuming fight.

“What’s wrong?” Mikasa asked, dreading an answer.

Mama only sighed. She was wearing her nightgown, and Mikasa watched the way her chest rose and fell beneath it, how it trembled, how red and tired her skin looked, how exhausted and spent she smelled, all worn and pale and slumped forward. Stripped of all her grace. All her splendor. And it suddenly hit her how human her mother was. All her life, Mikasa had idolized her. And now, seeing her like this, she looked so fragile. It seemed that even heroes could be brittle after all. Even Mama.

“There’s… There’s no easy way to say this.”

So Mikasa held her breath, ready to submerge herself in the tsunami that she knew was coming. She thought briefly of what had just occurred, contemplated interrupting Mama to share the great news, to tell her how she’d gone stargazing with her best friends and how her feet were covered in mud and she had to wash them and shower again and how Eren gave her a piggyback ride back home because he didn’t want her dirtying her crooked little ballerina toes any further. How nice was that, Mama? He carried her all the way home! She wanted to beg her to come back to normal, to be angry at her, ground her, send her to her room. But none of the scoldings ever came.

Deflated, her mother smoothed her hair behind her ears, and Mikasa wondered when it was that she had grown too. Grown too fast. Changed. When did she become this old? This wasted? Even like this, though, even all broken, she was still strikingly beautiful. Still her mother. Still that fervent, fiery woman that always sat up straight and walked tall and held her head high with the pride of a being who had conquered great battles in her life. But it seemed that she hadn’t conquered this one. She was drowning. And her daughter wished that she could save her.

Her daughter wept along with her when she confessed, “Your father’s gone.” Your father’s gone. _Gone_. The statement seemed to echo, to scream against the solemn air.

Her daughter didn’t need any further explanation. She didn’t need to be reminded that love wasn’t real. That love didn’t mean cheating on your spouse and fighting with them and leaving them and your young daughter. And Mikasa mourned for her mother, for her father, for how perfect they were as individuals but how detrimental they proved to be together after all, after everything they’d been through. And she felt terrible for her part in it, convinced it was all her fault. Convinced that if only she had warned Mama, told her of that time she found Papa with a some leggy woman at a cafe kissing when she was coming out of ballet, they would’ve had enough time to fix things. But now it was too late. She’d kept the secret in her until it hurt enough that it could burst within her. And now it exploded onto all of them. It was too late to fix anything. Too late, too late.

How could all of this happen?

How was Kami so damn cruel?

How could God allow for love to perish in this way, to break a family? A father’s hands were made to build a home, not to destroy it.

“Mama, please don’t cry.”

Mikasa held her mother’s hand, and Mama didn’t bother hiding her tears, rivers that poured freely from her beautiful slanted eyes. And she sobbed. And she whispered, “I’m so sorry, baby.”

And Mikasa could only ask, “Are you getting divorced?”

And Mama had to say no more. Because from the way she slipped her hand away from her daughter’s and held her face as she wailed, her frail frame jolting with every gasp and snivel, Mikasa knew there was no such thing as perfection. No such thing as Kami being kind. No such thing as the world being eternal. It was as if she’d been truly cleansed of all feeling, of all the fear and anger and pain. Among the turmoil, Mikasa experienced a sort of emotional death. She was so distraught, so ached, that she was numb. It was as if her entire life had been swiped away, like deep runes on a vast plane of sand smoothed flat. Like strong ink bled to a pale wash on a blank sheet of paper. Just like that. Just as suddenly. As if everything, everything, were nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bbs are growing so fast. I feel like Eren didn't get to be explored as much on this one, but you will just have to trust me and know that his situation gets explained better further on. Now, as always, thanks so much for reading and please be sure to leave a review and show your support if you would like to see more of the story. My tumblr is natiwati, should you like to reach me there. Have a good one!


	21. Swimming Among The Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t get used to updates coming this quickly, I’m officially all worn out. A huge thanks to the wonderful hotnspicynoodles23 and IamanAckerman for betaing this mess. Would not have been comfortable posting this if it wasn’t for their help, honestly. Now, having said that, enjoy!

 

Eren is doing three things when he sees her.

One, he’s taking the cigarette from Ymir’s mouth and perching it between his lips, inhaling a long drag that makes Sasha groan despairingly.

Two, he’s ignoring her protests when she pounces toward him and reaches for the cig, jumping on her toes while he pulls it from his mouth and holds it high above his head, using his towering height to his advantage. Smoke pushes out from the side of his lopsided smile, Ymir and Hitch grinning as the small brunette moans, “Seriously, Eren, you guys! You can’t smoke in here! This is  _ my _ coffee shop!”

Three, he’s wishing, wishing with everything in him, that Levi got to Mikasa in time. Wishing that he’d lead her to him somehow, that she’d be carried by the wind and end up magically in his arms.

He’s doing all these things when the little bell at the door jingles, announcing the entrance of a being that just stands there, shocked, staring at their frozen figures. 

Mikasa.

With her big doe eyes and her nervous hand-wringing and her brow-scrunching that makes the little slit between her eyebrows pop out. All different aspects of her screaming at him as he slowly unfreezes from his position, Sasha taking the cigarette from his hands and extinguishing with an annoyed huff. 

Everyone straightens, ceases what they were doing just to gape at the presence that has waltzed in through the door. She stands amid the chaos of last night’s party, juxtaposing the mess with her prim, quiet air. She looks so lost yet as relieved upon seeing them as a soul that has been found, a being that’s been brought back to its rightful destination.

She takes a step, stops, whispers so low that Eren strains to catch the words. 

“Are you guys… closed?”

“It’s New Year’s day!” Sasha pipes up from beside Eren, her smile warm, inviting, despite the stern look she shoots at him. “We never open on New Year’s.”

“Oh.” And she tenses, wrings her hands tighter. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll be leaving the—”

“No!” Eren nearly jumps over the counter to retrieve her, collect her into his arms and breathe in that aura that is purely hers, that indicates she’s here, that she hasn’t left him yet. But his heart leaps from the very front of his chest to the most intimate cellar within it, careful to contain itself. 

Ymir, Sasha, Hitch, all stare at him. 

He clears his throat.

“I mean…” And he can feel their gazes scrutinizing him, the smile that tightens their mouths. They all stop when he spares them a sideways glance, though, looking away just as quickly as they’d laid their eyes on him. 

“Stay,” he tells her gently. “ It’s okay. We were just cleaning up from last night’s party.”

Silence creeps in between them, hanging, dense. It billows with the way her chest rises, how her teeth peek out as she opens her mouth to say nothing. They seem to all be thinking the same thing, to be reliving the events that had taken place here only a short few hours ago.

The drinks, the music, the mindless intoxicated slurs.

The bodies pressed taut together. 

The lights. The sweat.

The way he’s asked, _ will you dance with me? _

Echoing, all echoing through the room in whispers that reverberate their innermost desires, like phantoms that refuse to die. That tug at Eren’s mouth and split it into a smile.

“Well, then,” Mikasa clears her throat, mildly embarrassed. Her cheeks are scraped this gorgeous pink color and Eren has to stare, unbidden, because he has no shame. Never has. He keeps smiling.

And then: “Do you guys need any help?”

The girls—Ymir, Hitch, Sasha—all open their mouths, but no words leave either of them. 

Eren stands. Smiling. Still. And he can almost feel the remnants of her touch on his skin, his flesh echoing with the warmth of her body, the fragility of his fingertips and the path they’d grazed up her hips, waist, arms, wailing with remembrance. How she looked, the sweat at the junction of her collarbones glistening, gleaming a trail down her breasts, how they’d huddled close together under the bosom of Hitch’s red dress. It had just been a dance, so it meant nothing. But, if he recollects correctly, there had been a time where they’d turned to face one another, her hair whipping out like a fan, tumbling to the side of her face, all in slow motion. And the shimmering glow of the lights around them had melted in her gaze, and he’d leaned forward to taste it, to capture the essence of the night that dwelled within her depths, when just as abruptly the dream had ended, and the solemn reality of life resumed again.

_ “Eren.” _

He can hear her voice.

_ “This is my fiancé, Jean.” _

Wispy and breathy and solely hers.

_ “It’s nice to finally meet you.” _

How wrong his own voice sounded, preceding her fiancé’s.

_ “Likewise.” _

Like two beings aren’t allowed to lace her name through their lips at the same time. To love her simultaneously.

_ “I bet.” _

He smiles brighter, because Jean may have been the one to have her last night, the one to take her home and call her his, but he can tell he didn’t even touch her. Because Mikasa gets all wispy and rosy and giggly after making love, and it lasts all the way into the morning. So Eren swallows down the victorious little chuckle that trickles from his mouth down his throat and dies away in his heart, for he will not set it free. Trapped within himself, he feels his spirit moving, galloping across the room to close the abyssal space between them, to join her in her little orbit, become one with her space. And he thinks of how impossible it is to ever stop loving this creature that’s no longer his, this girl with snowflakes in her hair and slightly chapped lips and lashes that touch her brows when her eyes widen. He hopes her fianc é realizes Mikasa’s the type of woman that deserves to sleep with the protection of arms around her, arms that daren’t ever let go. But then he remembers how she wrenched herself free of his grip that night six years ago. How she’d slipped right through his grasp and he calls himself a hypocrite, for how could he judge Jean for not loving her right when he hadn’t known how to do it himself?

“Actually,” Sasha grins suddenly, peering at Eren, interrupting his stupor. “I think we could really use you.”

“Eren was just leaving anyway,” Ymir adds, giving him a face. His gut swoops down with disappointment.

“Oh,” Mikasa breathes, looking at him.

He looks away.

“I need some help baking for tomorrow, since we’re opening again,” is what Sasha says as she approaches her. Her hair hangs loose in damp tendrils around her friendly face, auburn eyes shining, contrasted by the olive tint of her skin. They’d all showered before coming here, scrubbed off the vestiges of the past night as if they sought some sort of renewal. As if they could cleanse themselves of its sins. “Care to stay a while and help out?” 

Mikasa surprises them all by smiling brightly in response. 

“I would love that.”

“Great!”

The girls resume what they were doing. Ymir’s collecting the empty bottles of hard liquor and shoving them into a plastic bag, Hitch wiping down the counters and the walls and the floors. She doesn’t move yet though, only stares at Mikasa.

“Hey there, stranger,” she says, waving a light hand. “How are ya?”

“I’m good,” Mikasa smiles. Hitch smiles back. 

“Good.”

And she goes back to cleaning. Just like that.

Eren is the only one who stalls now. He’s staring at her as Sasha takes the broom from his hands and whispers for him to go.

He doesn’t object.

Instead, he gathers his things and pulls his coat over his shoulders just as Mikasa sheds hers. As he lifts his arms to fit them through each sleeve, his shirt raises and a sliver of skin peeks out where a v-shape leading down disappears into his jeans. As she walks to enter, he moves to leave. And when they cross one another, the sight of his bare skin still glowing in her eyes, she brushes her shoulder against his, coat to coat, flesh to flesh, and smirks when he turns to look at her with his lips slightly parted, words that itch to break free dangling by the very tip of his tongue.

He says nothing, though.

“See you later, Eren,” Mikasa breathes, her lips coiling around every syllable of his name.

He sighs. 

“See ya.”

And goes.

Mikasa can only stare as he walks away, overwhelmed by the void that bleeds within her. For a moment, it had been filled, but she feels it drain as Eren moves across the cafe and exits the building, never turning back to glance behind. Perhaps he knew she’d be staring.

She’s tempted to run after him and tell him what just occurred, tell him of her encounter with Levi and how much she’s missed him and how little he’s changed after all this time, this relic of their past that lives and kicks and remains even after all the pain, all the turmoil. But she then remember that Eren already knows, for he’s the one who sent him. She wants to thank him, but something tells her she has enough time, that she will see him again very soon, for the day is still young and the new year has merely started. And she feels a sliver of happiness at the thought. A glimmer of hope.

He vanishes, and when Mikasa turns back around, all the girls are looking at her. Grinning from ear to ear.

“What?” she says. They only keep on smiling.

“Nothing,” Ymir is the one to beam, a dimple much like Eren’s denting the flesh of her cheek. “It’s good to see you again, Mufasa. How do you feel?”

“I feel fine,” she responds simply, and the air suddenly feels lighter without Eren in it, easier to breathe as it no longer carries him around.

Sasha motions for her to join her, and they all pretend that he was never even there. But, you see, with Eren, that is hardly possible. How can one pretend not to feel the omnipresent heat of the sun? The luminous glow it emits as it shadows the moon? How do you pretend that your heart's not beating this ferociously, with the urgency of dusk as it knows the day has come to an end? Mikasa doesn’t even try to stifle her emotions, letting them wash out as affluently as they wish. And it’s so liberating to feel in this manner, to ache and thirst and crave this way. Because his eyes have registered in her brain and so has the rest of him, so that all she can picture as she glances around is his body pressed flush against hers, their figures moving to the rhythm of their hearts as they turn to smile at one another, and she moves in to taste a familiarity that she likes to pretend is not really there. Because two strangers that bear the pasts they do shouldn’t ever get this close. For that is fire, a match stuck to a potent keg.

Mikasa’s willing, so willing though, to burn.

**—o—**

“I met him at a bar,” Sasha’s saying coyly, taking a sip of her lukewarm beer, “and then I found out he lives in my building. We almost hooked up. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Hooked up as in what?” Hitch is the one to ask, giving the Solo cup in her hands a few mindless turns. “Kissing or doing the do?”

“Kissing.”

Ymir snorts loudly.

Hitch giggles too, turning to Mikasa to tell her, “Sasha’s so pure, it’s adorable.”

The aforementioned throws a beer bottle cap at her friend. Hitch dodges it, giving one of her dazzling, feline grins. 

“What? That was a compliment!”

“Yeah, right, asshole.”

They all laugh. Even Sasha.

They’re sitting in a circle on the floor, taking a break from baking and cleaning—which had quickly turned to a “let’s talk about Eren while drinking leftover beer and munching on pastries” fest. They’re all going over how they met him. 

Hitch had gone first, saying that she’d laid eyes on him when they became neighbors and how, one night after he’d had a really bad night terror, she’d banged on his door to tell him to quiet down when he’d answered “all shirtless and splendid, my god,” and then she “felt so bad ‘cause he looked so lost and sad so I couldn’t bring myself to bitch at him.” And that was that. Mikasa knows firsthand how terrible his night terrors can be, as she’s experienced him having them. The panting. The screaming. The crying. The thrashing in his sleep and the shock that comes with waking up. She wonders how their whole friends with benefits thing had started thereafter, since sleeping with him means risking one of those nightmares. But something tells her Hitch is a protector, that she’d save him from his dreams. Mikasa would have to ask her about that sometime.

Ymir met him during a sparring session, as they both practice martial arts and coach little kids. Mikasa had thought that to be adorable, picturing Ymir ratcheting down her coarse demeanor to be milder with the children. Or was she still crass? That’d be kind of funny. She knows Eren is a gentle teacher, though, Very gentle.

Sasha’s going over how everyone swears they’re siblings and how they tend to just roll along with it when Mikasa takes a sip of the hot chocolate in her hands, simpering at the mental picture of Eren Jaeger with a little sister. If Carla had lived long enough, she thinks, he could’ve definitely had one.

“I think, though,” Hitch purrs, lounging on the ground, blowing a fleck of confetti from her fingertip, “that out of all of us, Annie is the one with the most interesting story.”

“Annie?” Mikasa echoes, licking a drop of hot chocolate off her bottom lip. An image of her flashes through her mind: grand azure eyes, strong nose, pert lips, blonde hair pulled back in a messy bun, the brace around her wrist. She was a woman of sharp grace and quiet, smoldering strength. She reminded her very much of Mama. Of herself. “What happened?”

“Well,” Hitch begins, but Ymir is quick to interrupt, claiming that she was there so she should be the one to tell the story.

“He beat the living shit out of her dad,” she says. “It was wild.”

Mikasa’s eyes widen. “He what?”

“Yep.” Ymir laughs, but the topic proves not to be all that funny. “Annie’s been training since she was just a girl, so I’ve known her for ages. But even I can say I was starting to get worried. She’d come to trainings all beat up, and we all knew those bruises didn’t come from practice. So one day, Eren figured it all out and beat the shit out of her father. Annie was pissed. But I think now she’s thankful.”

Mikasa runs her fingertip along the rim of the mug she holds, sighing to herself. Because nothing sounds more like Eren than him butting into what is none of his business to save the day. Always gotta be the hero, that man. He’s a natural born protector, she thinks, wondering if he directs any of those primal instincts towards her.

“Well,” she says, taking another sip of the beverage Sasha was kind enough to prepare for her, “noting as she’s his girlfriend now, I’d say she’s quite thankful indeed.”

Ymir’s face goes blank. “His what?”

Mikasa raises her brows, and she’s about to speak when she notices Hitch and Sasha eyeing Ymir sternly, the confusion that floods her eyes before a shadow of clarity suddenly brightens them.

“Oh, shit. Yeah. Right.”

Hitch shakes her head as Sasha turns to face her, barely sparing her a moment’s breath before exhorting, “Anyway, how did you meet him, Mikasa?”

“Oh.” she gives a small yelp of a laugh, priding herself for perhaps having the best story of them all. Because Eren beating up Annie’s abusive father is undoubtedly heroic, but nobody had saved anyone the way he had saved her. She still remembers the smell in the air when she’d first laid eyes on him all those years ago—freshly cut grass and pollen. And the way Armin had flitted a hand between them, how he’d smacked that same hand on his own face when Eren failed to behave.

She smiles.

“I was nine. Our friend Armin introduced us.”

“Armin?” Hitch asks, taking a swig of beer. “Was he a childhood friend or something?”

“Yes,” Mikasa answers, mildly surprised that she’d never heard his name before.

“That’s an odd name.”

“It is. But he wore it well.” Mikasa’s eyes go soft, reminiscing. She wonders how she could possibly parcel the magnitude of such a being into a few words, settling for: “Armin was very smart. He always tried hard to get us together. And he succeeded. Eren and I were quickly good friends.”

Ymir’s rolling onto her stomach, setting her empty beer bottle on the ground by her arms before reaching for one of the croissants set on a plate amid the center of their circle. She’s munching on it, buttery crumbs adorning her lips as she mumbles through a mouthful, “So you know everything about his past then.”

Mikasa balks. 

The girls all have their eyes fixed on her.

“I suppose,” she murmurs eventually, bringing the hot chocolate to her lips.

Sasha’s the one to break the silence that follows, giving a loud sigh. “He never talks about it, you know. All we know is that he lost his mom when he was like ten. Aside from that, zero, zip. Nada.”

Mikasa tries not to show any emotion, but the past carries gashes that still run deep. She winces, stating, “Sometimes, it’s better that way.”

And then silence comes again. They sit quietly among themselves in their little tight-knit circle, and Mikasa has to remind herself that despite their friendliness, these girls are still very much Eren’s, not hers. She must be careful not to reveal too much, for who knows what could possibly get back to him? How much or how little he wants them to know? He’s kept his life a secret, and Mikasa can’t really blame him—she has done the same. She thinks of Jean, how he’s sure that before him nothing ever happened in Mikasa’s life, and she contemplates how easily yet painfully one can pretend that things never even occurred, the same way the sky clears after a mighty storm. 

Still, she wants to tell Ymir and Hitch and Sasha everything, let it all gush out. Tell them what happened with Armin and why Eren never speaks of his life before they came into it, to tell the truth to  _ somebody _ . Anybody. But if he’s kept everything from them, it’s not her place to reveal their past against his wishes. She chooses to respect him. As his friend. And for herself also.

“Okay,” Hitch slaps her hands together, a devilish grin creeping its way over her lips. “Enough about Eren. Let’s talk about how we all lost our virginities.”

Sasha groans. “Why do you always wanna talk about sex?”

“Because it’s great.”

“Okay, well, I’m not in on this one.”

Ymir simpers. “Sorry, Virgin Mary, but you still gotta participate.”

“But I’m a virgin!”

“You’ve kissed before though, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you go.”

Hitch shakes her head, running a hand through her hair. Unruly curls dance atop her head before falling around her face, accentuating her meager features. Her eyes are fiery with excitement, the quick clap of her hands she gives echoing off the stucco walls. “Anyway. Go.”

Sasha holds up a hand. “Not so fast, Hitch. You first.”

“Hmm, let’s see,” she smiles, as if she were expecting to go first from the very start. “I was… thirteen, I think? I lost it to my boyfriend at the time, It was awful. Hurt like a bitch.”

Sasha and Ymir give a loud laugh, and Mikasa wonders what’s so funny. But then Hitch shrugs and laughs too, and she thinks that perhaps it is because of the irony. Funny that someone so promiscuous now had, well, a bad start.

“Ymir,” Sasha says, downing the rest of her beer.

The woman hisses, her lips splitting sideways. “Ah, I don’t think you guys really wanna know.”

“Oh?” Hitch’s brows fly upward. “Pray do tell.”

It doesn’t take her any more coaxing after that. “Welp, I lost my v-card to Historia. We were nineteen. We fucked all night. It was awesome.”

Hitch laughs out loud, literally rolling, laying on her back as her boisterous giggles fill the room. 

Sasha, however, only shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Gross.”

After composing herself, Hitch wipes the tears that formed at the corners of her eyes. Mikasa smiles at the pink blush that dusts her cheeks when she rolls back onto her stomach and demands, “Sash. Your turn.” 

The brunette sighs, picking at her nails. She looks nervous. Mikasa places a consoling hand on her thigh, knowing that she’s next.

“I’ve only ever fooled around a little, as you all know,” she smiles at Mikasa before looking at the rest of the girls. “My first time doing that was with Connie.”

“What!?!?!?!?” Ymir practically chokes on her own spit. 

“Bitch!” Hitch yells, gasping. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sasha sighs, motioning vaguely to her friends. “Because I knew you’d react like this.”

“Damn you.”

“How was it?”

“It was perfect,” she smiles suddenly, playing nervously with a lock of her own hair. Her eyes are cast downward, the tips of her lashes touching the ruddy hue of her cheeks.  “He’s actually a really good kisser.”

“Bahahaha! You’ve hooked up with Avatar!” That would be Ymir.

Sasha only sighs again. “I think you mean Aang.”

Mikasa titters softly into her sleeve.

All eyes land on her.

Oh, no.

“Mufasa.” Ymir leans forward a little, her freckles like tiny shadows under the light. “Your turn.”

“Well,” she voices quietly, thinking that it’s best to get this over with. “I lost mine when I was sixteen. To my best friend.”

She’s surprised when Sasha is the one to question, “And how was it?”

Mikasa smoothes her hair behind her ears. It feels cold and damp, the snowflakes that had clung to the locks having all melted into them. She sighs quietly, then smiles at the fond memory.

“It was everything a girl could ever hope for,” she says, thinking of the clumsiness of that night, the shy sighs and the tentative, titillating fingers. The girls are practically glowing with interest. “He was so gentle, so loving. I trusted him completely, and he took care of me. Neither of us finished, but that’s okay.”

Hitch raises her brows, her pert lips twisting into another one of her cattish smiles. “That’s actually…. really fucking adorable.”

Ymir blinks. “Dude, yeah.”

Mikasa can feel herself blushing. She scratches the baby hairs at the back of her neck, asking, “You think so?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

“And what happened?”

She’s caught off guard by the question, realizing it was Sasha who had asked.

“Huh?”

“What happened to the guy? Do you still talk to him?”

At that, her gaze drops.

“No,” she says simply, hiding her mouth in her mug. “He’s long gone now.”

The hot chocolate in her hands has gone cold. And it’s Ymir’s voice that dares to rise above the silence.

“Sorry to hear that, man.”

“I like to remember him for what he was,” Mikasa answers, jumping when Hitch suddenly gives a loud moan.

“God!” she gasps dramatically, rolling onto her back again, slapping the back of her hand to her forehead. “That’s so romantic!”

They all laugh, including Mikasa.

It’s not long before one of them declares the break to be over. And as they clean and bake and talk, Mikasa feels over-socialized, spent. But she can sense how she’s grown closer to the girls. They all speak and joke with her freely. Even Hitch—specially Hitch. And Ymir has warmed up enough to give her playful punches and flinch when Mikasa returns them with as much fervor and Sasha’s always finding ways to feed her chocolate and Hitch gives her smiles and winks whenever their eyes meet.

So, they invite her to their annual “starlight swimming” they’d called it, declaring her part of their group.

“Annual what?” Mikasa queries, her eyes wide, gloved hands frozen around a pink creme puff.

“It’s this thing we do the first day of every year,” Hitch tells her, sitting on the kitchen counter near where they’re working at creating desserts. Sasha swats the side of her thigh, telling her to jump off. She doesn’t though, eyes trained solely on Mikasa. “ It’s lots of fun. You should join us.”

“What is it?”

“Swimming among the stars, we call it,” Ymir answers, groaning as she stretches her arms over her head. “We’ve all got this theory that the rest of our year only goes as well as our first day. So we make sure to enjoy it.”

Mikasa smiles, wiping her fringe from her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Let me guess. Eren came up with that.”

Sasha grins, her eyes shrinking into thin slits. “Yup!”

Ah. There you go.

“So you swim to celebrate the new year?” Mikasa asks, still smiling, and she’s been doing that a lot as of late.

Ymir gives a weak shrug of her shoulder. “Pretty much.”

“Welp,” Sasha wipes her flour-coated hands on her apron. “We’re going there tonight. You should stick around with us till then!”

Mikasa brightens at the invitation, her eyes flaring wide as she pictures all the events the night may hold. Seeing Eren again. Swimming with her friends. But then, just as quickly, she wilts.

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

Ymir: “Ha! You won’t need one!”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Hitch answers, rolling her eyes at her friend. “Just ignore her. I’ve got you covered.”

They clean up, the day’s work having ended. Ymir proposes they play video games at her place until the sun sets. Apparently, they only go swimming at night so that the stars can shine their brightest. And where do they swim? Well, it’s a surprise, they tell Mikasa. And she’s okay with that.

“I think I’m just going home,” Hitch answers, pulling her purse over her shoulder. She looks at Sasha, who gladly peeps, “I’ll play with you, Ymir!”

“Sweet.” Ymir wipes her hands on her jeans, her golden eyes landing on Mikasa. She asks, “Mufasa, you coming?”

“Ah.” 

“No,” Hitch answers for her, looping their arms together, “she’s coming with me.”

Ymir scoffs, offended. “Hey, not so fast, Curly Sue. She’s ours.”

“You’re funny, Freckles. She’s mine.”

“I know!” Sasha grins, boasting her brilliant idea. “How about we play at Hitch’s?”

“She doesn’t have an Xbox.”

“She has a Playstation.”

“But Xbox is life! Mikasa deserves the best, Sasha!”

“I actually…” Mikasa laughs, gazing at the women around her. Their eyes are benevolent, watching her.

She laughs again. Because just a few short weeks ago, days began when the sun rose and ended when it sank. Just weeks ago, Jiji was the only one she talked to outside of her fiance. Just weeks ago, she was alone, so totally alone. And now she beams at her new friends, grabbing Hitch’s hand before caroling:

“I think video games at Hitch’s sounds like a great idea.”

**—o—**

City lights whoosh on by in rapid pulses that blur to streaks of colors on the surfaces of his eyes. They lull, slowly, into a state of slumber, swallowing the luminescent hues.

He’s woken up some minutes later by the edge of Reiner’s boot at the side of his shin. “Wakey wakey, princess,” and he takes a swig of his cold beer, the paper bag that covers it rustling as he offers it to Eren. “Want some?”

“No,” he moans groggily, still mildly hungover from last night. He’d felt a lot better after eating Annie’s scrambled eggs and then promptly throwing them up, but the thumping in his head and the acidic tightness in his gut are still there. 

“Eren,” Reiner fidgets on his seat beside him, and he hears the rustling of paper, the swishing of the liquid inside his beer can. He smells like old cologne and cigarettes, his friend does. “Can I ask you something?”

Eren groans softly, sighing, his eyes still closed, throat throbbing as he swallows. The window against the back of his head is cold, a chill that reaches all the way into his cranium. “Go ahead.”

There’s a pause. Reiner seems to be thinking. Eren opens an eye to peek at him, and then finally he says, “I know we all agreed to help you out here, man, but could you at least tell us what she is to you?”

A smile. It quirks a corner of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Mikasa.” He says her name as if it were a death sentence. Bearing the shackles of each hiss and pause between the vowels, he smiles fully now. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

He doesn’t see how Reiner shakes his head, downs a sip of his beer, sighs and wipes the edge of his mouth with his coat sleeve. “Listen, man, I’ll always have your back. There ain’t no doubt about that. But I worry, you know? We all do.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Eren assures him. His friend doesn’t believe him.

“What is she to you, Eren?” he goes on. “Why are we pretending that Annie’s your girlfriend, that you don’t have a phone? Why are we getting Christa to secure her a role in that ballet theater?” Eren waits for him to mention that other thing he’s hiding from her, The Big Thing, but he doesn’t. He just sighs again. “I just think you should know that we’re all sacrificing something here, and we’ll gladly do it for you, man. But can’t we—can’t I, at least, know why?”

“You wanna know why?” Eren opens his eyes. The loud grind of the train rolling along its tracks nearly drowns out the sound of his voice, it’s so quiet. “Have you ever been thirsty, so so so thirsty that all you could think about was water?”

Reiner blinks. Shrugs. “Sure. Plenty of times, I guess.”

“And do you remember how you felt at that first sip, once the water ran down your throat and your senses screamed and you could just _ feel  _ yourself coming to life again? That satisfaction of being quenched after thirsting for so long?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what Mikasa is to me.”

“Shit, man.”

Eren looks down at his hands, at the holes of his jeans. He can see a peek of his own skin, tanned and scarred—even there on his legs. He’s full of scars. Full of the ugliness of his humanity. And he looks at his friend’s worried eyes, reassuring him with a tiny smile that’s quick to fade.

“I was her first everything, Reiner. Everything. Her first kiss. Her first fuck. I taught her how to drive. How to cook. How to laugh till her cheeks turned red and she nearly peed herself. We were together for so long. And then she left me. And I still don’t know why, but part of me thinks that I know and I just don’t wanna admit it to myself. Maybe she didn’t leave me, you know? Maybe I left her long before she walked out the door. And I know you guys all know it too, that I still love her. Shit, I practically wear it for everyone to see, this sickness. This caring for her. And she’s engaged, did you know that? To some douchebag that doesn’t know how to love her right.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“Aren’t you scared, Eren?”

He laughs. “Fuck yeah. Terrified.”

“What of?”

Oh, god. What isn’t there to be afraid of? He’s lived these past six years on autopilot, just breathing and blinking and thinking upon instinct, nothing more. But now his moves are filled with purpose, each breath held by lungs that want to breathe, words spoken by a mouth that savors words, blinks through eyes that revel in what they see, that can pick up colors again.

“I’m scared she’ll make me want to live again.” And it’s so sad to voice it aloud. He almost wants to cry. Because it’s true. God. It’s so fucking true. After being mute for so long, now he sings. And he’s scared, so damn scared, that he’ll grow attached to the song just as it’s abruptly ended. Because they all end, you see. Everything does. Nothing’s made to last. Not even Mikasa.

“Eren…”

He clears his throat, picking invisible lint off his jeans. “The girls are gonna take her to see the stars tonight. I told them to. Mikasa loves stars.”

“But don’t you think this is wrong?” Reiner shakes his head, his eyes heavy. He loves him, Eren knows, but that doesn’t mean he agrees with everything he’s doing. “You’re setting up these variables in her life and she has no idea.”

“Nah. I’m helping her.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“She’s happier,” he tells him simply. “I can feel it. That’s all I want. I don’t care if she finds out what I’m doing and hates me for the rest of my life, just as long as she’s happy again, Reiner. That’s all I want to do with the time I have left. I just wanna make her happy.”

Reiner gives a chuckle. It erupts from deep within his diaphragm, quaking his gigantic chest. “You don’t mean that.”

Eren smirks.

“Maybe I don’t.”

**—o—**

They don’t play video games.

Instead, they sit around Hitch’s living room and talk. Talk. Talk. Talk as they sit huddled eating chinese takeout. Talk as they change and Hitch lets Mikasa borrow a bathing suit. Talk as they walk to the subway and catch a train. Talk all the way to the building where Ymir teaches martial arts with Eren. 

It’s a huge building of six floors, each one dedicated to a different sport. The place is locked and vacant and dark, and Mikasa can’t help feeling a bit uneasy as Ymir jingles the keys in her hands, grinning.

“So, this is where Eren works?” she asks. The girls nod.

“Yup!”. 

“But how will we see the stars here?” she says sadly, feeling let down. “We’re in a city. There’s no stars in the sky.”

“Ah,” Ymir smiles widely, her dimple flashing, freckles dancing across her face. “That’s where you’re wrong, you see. There’s stars all over. They’re everywhere. You just gotta find them.”

“How?”

Sasha wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her close to her. Her breath is sweet, redolent of pink bubble gum. “Come,” she tells Mikasa, her face a mere inch away from hers. “We’ll show you.”

**—o—**

They tell her to close her eyes. It’s a surprise, they say. 

Mikasa steps are hesitant, ushered by Hitch’s guiding hands. Her grip on her wrist is firm but gentle. “Don’t you dare open them,” she whispers back at her through the darkness behind her eyelids. “You gotta keep your eyes shut.”

So she does. And she hears the ding of the elevator as they go up six floors, the big doors parting open. The loud thumping and echoing of their footsteps. The rattle of Ymir’s keys and the click of a large metal door being unlocked, the mighty creak of it flying open. A tremendous rush of wind engulfs her, and she nearly opens her eyes in alarm. But she squeezes them tighter, asks, “Where are we?” but nobody responds. The night air is surprisingly comfortable for it being the middle of winter. Even though it had snowed earlier in the morning, most of it has already melted to thin sleet, a gossamer sheet that cracks beneath the heels of her boots. 

“Alright,” Hitch breathes, the wind carrying her words. “Now. Open them.”

Slowly, Mikasa opens her eyes.

Gasps.

“This is…” 

Colossal stars glint and shine around them, so close Mikasa feels she could touch them. She turns on her toes, dumbfounded. The massive lights are endless, sparkling for miles and miles without end, like shards of the sun scattered everywhere. Some of them blink, some of them shimmer without interruption. Mikasa holds a hand to her mouth, the wind blowing her bangs across her face, so strong it could push a building.

“It’s the city lights!” Ymir announces triumphantly. “We’ve brought the stars to earth!”

“Take that, heaven!” Sasha punches a fist into the air. Everyone giggles.

Mikasa grins at her surroundings. They stand on the rooftop, where heaven is ever closer and the buildings around them stand perched with pride. The city lights murmur and flicker and Mikasa closes her eyes and sighs happily, absorbing the colors and the noises, remembering how she’d touched the stars with Armin when they were younger, how he’d gone on about their stories, his breath all high up in his lungs. And the girls lead her to the guardrail where they stand and laugh and tell jokes, and Mikasa feels such an inexplicable rush of joy, such a sense of belonging. She fits. Finally. She fits somewhere. And as they stand amid the stars the girls tell her their stories, Mikasa thinks how each of her new friends is their own constellation, their own perfect array of shining life.

Hitch grew up in a loving home until her parents split and she was left to live alone with an alcoholic daddy, rendering her angry and confused and that is when she started experimenting with both girls and boys, seeking desperately to fill the hole her parents’ failed marriage left in her. 

Sasha was born in the poverty of the woods where she hunted her own food and ate scraps in the winter until a rich family adopted her and she made a name for herself baking cakes and pastries and owning her own cafe.

Ymir was homeless before she met Historia, living among street gangs and people’s charity before becoming roommates and eventually falling in love. She’s been friends with Sasha forever, as back in her homeless days she used to frequent the cafe for a free meal.

And Mikasa listens to all of their stories, closing her eyes, relishing in her own. Each living person is a tale, a humanity that clambers and fights to preserve itself. She has a lot more in common with them than she’d initially thought. She certainly knows what it is to go through each one of these trifles: to grow up in the scarcity and abundance of the woods while Papa hunted and Mama grew meager crops, having parents that divorced and shattered her idea of love, being homeless and having nowhere to go after they—

Mikasa clears her throat.

She’s lived and loved and felt and ached and something new comes alive within her. Something exciting. Because she thinks of how her life is truly hers and hers alone. Much in the same way that her friends defied their struggles and flourished to where they are now, so has she. Against the odds, she’s bloomed wherever life has planted her, grown to what she is today. Funny that she feels this way, as she’d felt so void and sullen this morning when she spoke to Levi. But life is a series of ebbs and flows, so she lets go, lets the stream carry her. Lets her heart lead the way.

She’s about to part her lips to speak when Hitch suddenly yells, “They’re here!”

“Eren!” Sasha squeals before darting to him and flying into his arms, wrapping her arms and legs around him as he catches her with a labored groan.

Reiner, Connie, Eren, and Historia all appear behind them, wearing smiles on their warm faces. Mikasa wonders where the rest of the people are, and Ymir, giving her girlfriend a greeting smooch on the lips, says that they’re unable to make it.

“Sucks for them,” Historia peeps in her soft, angelic voice. “The rest of their year might be crap now for it.”

Mikasa stands quietly as everyone greets each other, Eren pecking Hitch on the cheek and taking a greeting punch on the arm from Ymir before turning to her, absorbing her presence with his eyes as they stroll up and down her figure.

“It’s good to see you again, Mikasa,” he says, the wind ruffling his long hair. A lock blows across his nose before he smooths it behind his ear. In the darkness of the night, his eyes shine brightly, just as the lights around them do. “You enjoying yourself?”

“Oh, yes,” Mikasa breathes, her heart fluttering at the way his smile broadens the features of his face.

“I’m glad.” 

Greetings are distributed evenly before they all stand by the guardrail to gaze at the makeshift stars. The city glows proudly, playing pretend. 

Connie and Sasha are whispering to each other, Hitch and Reiner talking among themselves, Ymir and Historia gazing quietly at the splendor of the night in front of them, all so preoccupied that they don’t notice how Mikasa winds up beside Eren, how she prickles at how the wind gathers his scent and carries him to her. 

She studies him, and he’s not looking at her or the stars, his eyes are cast downward, until she utters his name and he comes alive, humming, “Hmm?”

“I saw Levi,” she tells him. His smile is big.

“How was that?”

“It was great,” she’s smiling too. Smiling brightly. Smiling so much her cheeks ache. “Thank you,” she whispers, leaning in just a little. And Eren shakes his head, smiles at his feet below him.

“You’re welcome, Mikasa,” is all he says, and she thinks of how wonderful it is, how funny, that their present relationship mirrors so much of the past. They have a bench, a camaraderie that burgeons among nature and stars and rooftops. She takes his hand in hers and gives it a small squeeze, his eyes lingering on their laced fingers before rising to meet her.

Her grin is a deep curling cut on her face, oozing, “I mean it, Eren. For everything. Thank you.”

He shakes his head, and the others don’t see how he sighs, wanting to cry, how he fights the tears back. He’s so tired, so exhausted, so sick of playing pretend. If only he could open his chest and let his heart pour out of him, envelop her in all his love. He’s so tired of being a prisoner to his emotions, so tired of stifling them and shushing them to keep them both safe. But then he looks down at their hands and he sees the diamond shimmering on her engagement ring, as fervent as the lights around them, as beautiful and bright. And he can hear Jean’s voice telling him to protect her, his promise answering back that he always will. And sometimes protecting people means lying. Sometimes loving means keeping your heart locked away deep, deep, deep inside.

“Mikasa,” he starts, but doesn’t finish. Her brows go up and her eyes grow bigger, her hand still in his when he brings it to his lips and kisses it. Lightly. Barely there.

“Nothing,” he says, petting her hand, letting it go. “Nothing.”

She opens her mouth but all that spills out is silence. Her eyes look sad but Eren ignores them, for they have a way of sucking him in, of entrancing him. He’s useless against her magic, writhing willingly under her spell. With the spirit of a capitulated man, he looks up at the sky and asks God for forgiveness. Forgiveness for his fragility, for his weakness, for the shameless way he’d gladly bleed out for the girl at his side. He wishes he were stronger. Better. Better for her. 

Everyone goes quiet and they stare on, the night-time city bustle echoing throughout the sky. Car horns, sirens, planes. All snailing by like the plump dark clouds above them, and it’s a long time before either of them speaks again, before any voice dares to crack the silence.

“So this is what swimming in the stars is like,” Mikasa says eventually, which makes Reiner shake his head.

“Well,” he smirks, acknowledging the rest of the group. “Not exactly.”

They all grin to one another. Only Mikasa stands frozen, not knowing what to do.

“What do you mean?” she says. 

They all scramble.

Like a group of ants, everyone works at unclipping and removing a large cover on the ground. Historia runs to turn some lights on, and they buzz to life on the guardrails, the floor, then finally what looks like a giant puddle of water. She flips another switch on a wall and a noise begins to waft off the shallow oasis, and as Mikasa approaches she realizes it’s a heater, and that the water is not shallow at all. It’s a pool. A deep pool.

She laughs. “No way! They got a pool on the rooftop? What kind of building is this?”

“The awesome kind,” Hitch answers, dipping her fingers into the water.

Connie smiles brightly, stretching his arms to the sides. “Tada!”

Mikasa covers her mouth, giggling. “All of you are crazy!”

Eren smiles brightly at that. Everyone does.

They stand around the large pool, staring down at it, the water glowing a soft deep blue. Streaks of light swim across Eren’s face and body as he turns to her and says, “Ready, Mikasa?”

She stands tall, the cool air tickling her face. “Ready.”

And then everyone starts stripping.

“Wha—” Mikasa gasps, turning away when Hitch’s bare breasts pop out from under the shirt she’s promptly removing. “Oh, God,” she whispers, and hears Ymir laugh so hard she might pee her pants—or, well, the lack of thereof. “What are you doing?!” she asks no one in particular. Historia’s the one to respond.

“It’s for good luck!” 

“We swim just as nature intended,” Sasha peeps from somewhere behind her. “Butt naked.”

She hears the clinking of belt buckles, the unzipping of pants, the rustle of shirts being tossed and bras being unclasped.

“But it’s the middle of winter!” she protests, covering her eyes, as if the gesture alone could erase the image of their nudity. But all she sees behind her eyelids is the piercing on Hitch’s navel, the small tattoo by the side of her naked hip.

“That’s the whole point,” Reiner says.

Mikasa turns to look at Eren, and he’s fully clothed save for his shoes and shirt. He stares at her, the scars scattered across his chest stagnant against the dancing lines that swim across him. His torso is taut and rippled and Mikasa feels herself blush at the way his hair touches his collarbones, how the veins of his forearms flex as he unbuckles his belt. 

“You don’t have to get in if you don’t want to,” he says, wearing the ghost of a smile. “But there’ll be consequences if you don’t.”

Mikasa’s brows lift. “Oh?” she tests. Eren grins, his dimple showing. 

“We’ll all think you’re a coward.”

Mikasa bites her lip, closing her eyes when she hears him unzip his pants loose and knows he’s pushing them down his thighs. There’s a splash behind her, a loud cry, some whooping. She jumps in her skin when droplets of water spritz the back of her neck.

“Eren,” she whispers, but she knows he’s no longer there.

She opens her eyes, looks up at the sky. Starts laughing.

Everyone’s insane, she thinks, but they sound so happy. 

“I understand now,” she tells heaven, closing her eyes. This is what freedom feels like.

Spurred by a bout of courage, she takes off her coat. Then her top. Her shoes. Her jeans. Her socks. She’s just in Hitch’s bathing suit when she turns to peer behind her, where motion on the water’s surface blurs everyone’s naked, bouncing bodies. 

Eren’s on the edge of the pool with his mouth blowing bubbles just beneath the surface, eyes looking up at her. Big. Green. Blue. 

“Phew,” he whistles, his long hair all smoothed back behind his head. “Look who’s brave.”

Mikasa crosses her arms over her shivering figure and glowers at him. “I’ll get you back for this, Eren Jaeger.”

He grins. “Looking forward to it.”

She laughs. But then the courage that had filled her flits away. She’s embarrassed, staring at the way the others bounce and squeal and swim and play. She bends to get closer to Eren and whispers, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

He’s no longer teasing. Serious, he asks, “Why not?”

“It’s unlike me.”

“Nothing’s unlike you.”

“But… it’s cold.”

“Nah, the water’s warm.” He points downward, droplets dripping off his fingertip. “Water heater.”

“Eren, I don’t know.”

“We won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do, Mikasa,” he tells her, his arms stroking circles in the water, carrying him away. “But if you’re not gonna get in, watch our stuff, will ya?”

Mikasa twitches.

Watch your own damn stuff, she thinks.

She’s not a coward. 

She’s not a wimp.

She looks at the piles of clothes scattered around her, feeling herself shiver against the cold. And with a pent up breath, she promptly works at loosening the strings of her bathing suit. Nobody’s looking at her so she lets the top and bottom wilt away to the cool ground by her feet, her bare skin puckering at a gust of wind as she lets it whisk her away, jumping into the pool with her hair flowing behind her and a hard, loud splash that makes the others gasp.

The water contrasts the winter chill with its omnipresent heat, shrouding her like a little ball as she sinks lower, lower, lower. She doesn’t open her eyes when her butt taps the bottom, allowing the buoyancy of her body to take her back to the top. When her head breaks the surface and she hears Eren call, “Mikasa!” she flattens her hair behind her head and opens her eyes.

“I did it!” she pants. Everyone cheers.

“Fuck yeah, Mufasa!”

“Way to go!”

“Woot woot!”

“You did it,” Eren echoes softly, smiling. Their heads bob as they paddle to stay above water, and it occurs to her that they’re friggin’ naked. She laughs at how wild and preposterous this all is. How unimaginable.

She looks up at the sky, catching only a single glint peering down at her. 

“It’s not like when Armin would take us stargazing,” he tells her, looking up too, “but it’s still good.”

“This is amazing,” she tells him, sighing. “Amazing, Eren.”

“You’re amazing,” he grins. Droplets trickle down his neck, jaw, the bridge of his nose. His eyelashes are damp and clumped together and they pulse in quick blinks before he smiles even harder. “I gotta admit, I didn’t think you’d do it.”

“How little you know,” she laughs. He laughs with her.

Then they’re quiet. And the water is a faint dribble at the backs of their minds. Mikasa holds her hands to her chest, covering her breasts underwater, but Eren’s eyes don’t ever break away from her face, daring not to venture any lower. She’s not as coy, though, she gawks. And she can feel the heat of the pool rushing up her neck to her cheeks where it settles. Her lips tingle with memory, her mind venturing to a time when they were much younger and shared a home with Armin, how he’d snuck into the shower once and held himself against her, the way waves seemed to wash down his face as she turned to glance behind. And no words were said. No breaths were spared. She’d smiled and grabbed him and kissed him through the film of water that ran down their heads, leading his hands to places where she needed to be felt, where she needed him to linger. And he’d cupped a hand on her mouth to stifle her cry when he pulled her leg up and pushed himself into her, bodies fitting together, his breath hot and moist against the expanse of her dewed neck. His name egressed from her mouth in a wimpish moan that left her breathless, pawing at the forlorn tiles behind her as if they could save her, mewling litanies that echoed through the night.

She feels herself turn red, gasping at the thoughts in her mind. How inappropriate, Mikasa! Eren smiles, clueless, oblivious to the fact that she’d accidentally moaned his name last night instead of Jean’s, oblivious to how the memories swarm her and mock her and he’s about to ask if she’s okay when suddenly his head disappears into the water and bubbles burst on the surface with muted pops.

“Eren?” she blinks at the empty space in front of her. “Eren?!”

His head pops back up some panicked moments later, the pool’s surface cracking open just a few feet away. His hair is a mess as he whips his neck to glare back at his laughing friend and yells, “Connie! You bastard!”

Mikasa giggles. 

She peers back up at the sky, and she can feel how it smiles back down at her, breathing words only she can hear. She can hear Mama. Papa. Everyone she’s ever loved. And asks Levi if he’s proud of her.  _ See, uncle? I followed my heart. Made a fool of myself. And I don’t regret it. I don’t regret a single thing.  _

The lone star in the sky flickers, and then, just like that, it disappears. Mikasa is left to stare at the dark stretch of heaven above her, craving for a glow that is no longer there. So she seeks the one in eyes she’ll always remember, breathing, “Eren?”

He pushes his hair away from his face. His nose is pink. Eyes bluer than she’s ever seen them. Oceans. Holding oceans. “Yeah?”

And she smiles. To him, to herself, to the sky, she smiles and she floats and her skin lines with goosebumps and her senses come alive, one by one, like candles flaring because she can hear Connie and Reiner wrestling in the water, the girls splashing each other, Ymir flipping Hitch off when she tells her to get a room as she gropes Historia’s little bottom, and her dark black hair sways around her like seaweed as she floats and she laughs and smiles and whispers, “Happy New Year, Eren.”

He smiles, too.

“Happy New Year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please be sure to leave a review if you would like more of the story. Feedback keeps me going. You can also message me on tumblr (natiwati) if you would like to contact me through there. Have a good one!


	22. My Flower's Candid Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly just a preface to the next past chapter, and a foreshadow to what will happen later on in the story. I already have the next chapter written, so expect an update hopefully very soon! As always, thanks so much for reading, and enjoy.

Her parents’ divorce left Mikasa’s split in half. 

What once was singular became double. She had two homes, two bedrooms, two parents, two lives. Mama and Papa were no longer one, and when they decided to split custody of her, Mama was the one to move out, leave everything. Papa left all of himself to her. His money. His house. His love. But she wanted none of it. So, with a heavy heart, Mikasa had to stuff all her belongings into her little princess tote bag and leave her home near Eren’s house behind. 

She cried. She cried. She wept until her eyes were swollen and her throat was scraped raw and she could cry no more—and even then she still managed to squeeze out a stray tear or two. And Eren held her. Through all of it, he held her. Until she was wrenched from his grip and had to watch their grandpa bench beneath the willow tree they’d grown up under dwindle behind her as Mama drove away, the blurry image jolting as the old pickup truck ran over a bump on the gravel road.

Divorces are like their own little funerals. There’s the consoling, the weeping, the loss—except that those being missed are still alive. But after Mama left Papa, a huge chunk of who she was perished. And when he was left with nothing but empty walls and vacant rooms and closets devoid of clothing, Papa waned in ways Mikasa had never seen him do before. He wilted. Wilted. They all wilted like flowers, petals left to scorch out in the sun that once granted them life. Too much of something is guaranteed to kill anything, and it seemed that Mama and Papa had loved each other too much. 

Mikasa promised herself, as she poured all her belongings onto her new unmade bed, that she would  _ never  _ end up like them.

Gradually, as everything changed, so did she. Whereas once she dressed in pinks and whites and lilacs, now she sported blacks and reds. Her nails were always darkened with lifeless polish and her once long tresses now fell short, barely reaching the bones of her shoulders. She wore black lipstick and combat boots and joined fights when Armin was being bullied, crushing noses and temples and Mama was brought into the office where she’d never stepped foot in once before. 

Mikasa was angry, so angry. Her rage spurred and shifted to the tips of her fingers, curling, curling, until her hands balled to fists and they crashed against people. She defended what she loved now more than ever, clinging to it with the desperation of knowing that it would someday fade away. In this, she finally understood why Eren always fought. She finally got it.

It was one afternoon when they were both sitting in the principal’s office that he stared at her with eyes like razors, cutting her. “Mikasa,” he told her, the wound on his temple bleeding. “I’m so worried about you.”

They’d just finished beating a pair of seniors that had shoved Armin’s face into the toilet. He sat sniveling in the counselor’s office, puking the toilet water he’s swallowed trying to scream. “Don’t be,” she said, her voice barely anything more than a whisper. Because even talking became too much, too heavy. With the world barely clinging to its axis, words were as futile as the screams Armin had uttered as those bullies pummeled his face into the toilet water. Useless. Unheard.

Eren shook his head, wincing at the cut on his temple. It oozed. She stared at it, perfectly unscathed herself save for the bruises on her knuckles. “You’re not— This isn’t like you.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. Why are you fighting, Mikasa?”

Why isn’t she fighting more, is the question. Because she didn’t fight hard enough for Mama and Papa and look where that got them. Because if she doesn’t fight hard enough now—fight like you taught her to, Eren—everything will fall apart. She needs to cling, or bad things will happen. Bad, bad things.

“They’re picking on Armin,” she answered simply. Eren’s eyes were blue with sadness, spilling.

“But you always said—”

“Why are you crying?”

“You always said—”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

The corner of Eren’s jaw flickered as he tightened it. He said no more, shifting on his seat, wiping his eyes with his swollen knuckles. He was already sitting, but the way he moved made it seem like he was slamming his body down onto the chair. For a flicker of a second, Mikasa felt bad. But that was quick to fade, squandering away like the rest of her emotions until she had none—nothing—left.

She was this endless, endless void. 

So endless, that she felt numb as the principal voiced her verdict. She was suspended. Two weeks. Eren only had one. He didn’t break any bones, you see. And Mama was too sad to be angry, to concerned for her daughter to yell. She looked at her with worry dampening her eyes, gleaming through the rearview mirror on the journey home. To their new home. Their sad home. And Mikasa thought of a time when love meant happiness, when it meant singing songs with Mama in the car, murmuring Japanese verses she could not understand, giggling at the funny way they twisted and curled in her mouth like tickles. But love meant fists now, it meant the principal’s office and Eren crying and music no longer filling their car rides. It was silence, and the absence of what once glowed so brightly it filled every crevice of her life. It was emptiness. All her holes bled empty. All her heart pumped empty. All of her, all of her. Empty. Empty.

Empty.

**—o—**

Mama whispered old lullabies as she dug into the earth of their new front yard, planting blueberries and other seasonal fruits, all in an attempt to resurrect the old phantom of this house. Their new home was small, ancient, with creaky floorboards and walls that whispered in the wind. Only one story tall save for the room up in the attic, where Mikasa resided and spent most of her time locked away. Mama jumped once she appeared at the porch with the house phone in her hands, declaring, “Uncle Levi called.”

Her mother swiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her gloved hand, panting, “And?”

Mikasa sighed into the humidity of the world. Summer was fast approaching, the trees all denuded of any blossoms save for incessant spews of green, all sorts of greens. Armin had said once that the town they lived in held over five hundred shades of green in the summer. Like a tropical island, he’d boasted. Like a different world.

“And,” Mikasa droned, staring down at her combat boots. She was still breaking into them, and they hurt her crooked feet. “He says he’s coming for a week or two to help out.”

“I don’t need his help,” Mama murmured to her flowers.

“Well, we’re getting it,” Mikasa said, wincing at her own tone.

Mama straightened, something strange clouding her eyes. She looked like she could burst into tears or a bout of rage at any second, and Mikasa knew she wasn’t helping at all. A thin thread hung over Mama’s head since the divorce, and sometimes that thread snapped, and what was left behind was a shattered woman. A remnant. A ghost.

Mikasa stared at her mother, at the sweat that trickled down her face, her neck, like her whole body was crying. And she thought of the thread on her own head, how thin and frail it was, how often it snapped, snapped, snapped. Like it was doing now. Leaving her in remains. Scattered Pieces.

“Why are you being like this?” Mama asked helplessly. “I just want to know. Why?”

Why am I being like this, Mama? Mikasa wanted to ask  _ her _ for answers, for she had none herself. Why had she donated all her girly clothes and smashed all the pastels and lilacs in her old room, built upon her new one like a mural of reminders that seethed: love isn’t real, it isn’t real, it isn’t real? Why was this her own way of mourning, of shedding her old ideas of love, this new attitude? It’s not like she could even help it. She wanted more than anything to help Mama, to assuage Papa’s pain. But it was them who crumbled their own marriage. It was them who cheated and fought and now they get their own little ceremony, their divorce papers and court hearings and therapy where Mikasa gets nothing, nothing, just Eren crying and her fellow ballerinas pointing laughing fingers at her and the abyssal darkness of her room throbbing with deep, metallic music. So why is that, Mama? Why?

Mikasa didn’t answer her. She turned on her heels and went inside, her eyes digging through her surroundings, the strangeness of it all. A bouquet of flowers sat perched on the center of their small kitchen table, the oven wafting off scents of the the cherry pie that it cooked inside, all of this prim quiet aura invaded by the juxtaposing whir of violent music that burst from Mikasa’s little room upstairs.

She sighed and dropped the phone back into the receiver, tracing a small crack on the wall with her nails. She was that crack, Mikasa decided. A crack in the foundation of this large world, threatening to grow, grow, grow, then break everything. 

She needed Eren.

Needed him to hold her, just hold her, and tell her everything would be alright. But such comforts are for the weak, she told herself, and now she needed to be strong, to show no emotion, no surrender. It’s like somebody pricked her heart and let it drain out all of its emotion, so that she had none left. Time seemed to lug on slowly, screeching almost. So when Mikasa made the slow journey back up to her room and saw six missed calls from Papa and a text message ( _ I’m sorry, baby. I love you. Please talk to me. I love you. _ ) her heart did that thing it’s learned to do where it hardens, bit by bit, until it’s nothing but this cold, cold rock inside her.

She deleted the text message.

The missed calls.

And was just about to turn off her phone when it suddenly rung in her fingertips.

It was Armin.

“Hello?” Mikasa croaked, her voice like sandpaper scraping up her throat. She shut off the music in her bedroom, so that silence blared into her ears instead. Taunting.

“ _ Mikasa, _ ” her friend sighed on the other line, his voice a small lull of peace piercing the chaos of her own mind. “ _ I am so, so worried about you. _ ”

“Everyone keeps saying that.” She hopped onto her small bed, pulled her legs up to her chest. “How do you feel, Armin?”

_ “I feel fine.” _

“I’m sorry about those seniors bullying you.”

_ “Me too.” _ A tiny laugh, music to her ears.  _ “I can’t believe you broke that guy’s nose.” _

“He was mean to you,” she said, realizing she was smiling. “I’ll break a thousand noses for you, Ar.”

Even through the phone, Mikasa could feel Armin’s sigh, feel the rush of breath, of warm life, caressing her face.  _ “Ah. You sound like Eren.” _

Falling to her side, she pulled the covers over her body, not even bothering to take off her shoes, She breathed deeply, inhaling the strange scent of her pillow, a smell she was yet to grow accustomed to, one she couldn’t believe now belonged to her.

“He’s mad at me,” she said, remembering the look in his eyes back at the principal’s office. And she’d memorized their shape so many times before, their every color and nuance. But never had they fixed themselves on her that way, so discriminating. So sad.

They hadn’t spoken since.

She missed him. God, god, she missed him. Ached.

Armin gave another sigh, and Mikasa pictured his gaunt chest rising and falling, the little bones that seemed almost brittle, made of thread. He’d lost weight in the past year, so much so that he looked like all the juice had been wrung out of him. It’s just the nerves, he’d say. It’s just my anxiety, I can’t eat. I can’t eat.

_ “Mikasa, I don’t like that,” _ came his voice, all taut with worry.  _ “I don’t like what you’re doing.” _

She sighed, throwing the covers over her face, breathing in the suffocating darkness. 

“What am I doing?” It’s a genuine question.

_ “You’re strong, Miki.”  _ Armin answered candidly. His voice broke, and Mikasa couldn’t tell whether it was coming from him or the receiver. _ “You’re so strong. But you don’t need to be aggressive to show that.” _

She closed her eyes. Pictured him. Then Eren.

Everyone had changed so much. Too much. They weren’t kids anymore, innocent. They had cuts on their knuckles and bones that stuck out and clothes that reflected all the nights of the world, black like the stretch of darkness above, peppered only by a few glinting stars that gleamed like small shards of light, the sky’s jewelry. And Mikasa mirrored that now. She was a dark cloud where once she was the sun’s shining rays. This is what turning fifteen did to her. This is what loss did to her. She went from day to night. From everything to nothing. And she was stronger now than ever—her thighs were rock solid and her arms bulged slightly so that her punches stung, broke, gnarled. Physically, she was there. She just needed to harden a little more spiritually. Disappear a little more. Until there was no Mikasa left, and that way nothing, nobody, could ever hurt her again. Never, ever, again.

She cleared her throat.

“I must fight,” she said finally, hearing her mother’s footsteps in the distance, her heart sinking at the thought of her. “I have to fight. Look at what happened to my parents. They didn’t fight, Armin.”

_ “Not like this, Mikasa. Not like this.” _

“I love you, Armin. I can’t lose you.”

There was silence. A long, long silence that made Mikasa wonder if he was still there. In the time it took him to speak again, she visualized him next to her, his hands stroking her hair the gentle way they always did when she’s upset, letting the inken tresses spill between the cracks of his thin fingers. She imagined Eren, the heat that radiates off his gorgeous eyes when they stay on her and she’s crying, like she’s crying now. Hot, fresh tears rolled horizontally down her face from how she’s lying. And she promptly dried them, pushed them away, stifled them. Because she must be strong and she must be cold and she has no more heart or time to spare and yet, and yet, her heart still melts, dribbles utter love and vulnerability, when Armin answers:

_ “I love you too.” _

**—o—**

Now, more than ever, Eren had to learn how to control his own emotions. Control, he told himself. Control.

When they pulsed and fluttered at the sight of Mikasa—her new short hair, her faded combat boots, her plaid skirts and knee-high socks and long sleeved tops. Control. When he heard her voice and she’d changed so much but that aspect of hers still remained the same, so faint and wispy, barely ever more than a breath. Control. When she shared a seat beside him in the principal’s office and he knew with everything in him that her place was on stage, in front crowds of people, dancing, twirling, flourishing, and not here with him, like him. Control.

Control.

But he struggled.

Because he knew Mikasa, he knew her better than anyone and he hated what she’d become. He knew it wasn’t really all her fault, for she blamed herself for what happened to her parents. But why did life shape her into this? How did she go from this glorious beam of life to this insipid shadow? Eren felt that he could’ve done more to help her, to keep this from happening, but he knew better than anyone that you can’t save people, only love them. And he loved Mikasa. He loved Mikasa.

Perhaps now was the time to tell her.

He was waiting for her by her school locker when she appeared, suddenly, with Fucking Samuel at her side. Eren’s skin prickled at the way they conversed, the tiny smile that dawned on her dark lips, the way his eyes scoured her figure as if he could see through her clothes, see through to all of her.

Eren, a bit nervous, guffawed.

Fucking Samuel was a jock in their grade, one of the popular kids (barf), and Eren knew him from soccer (double barf), and he knew him well enough to know that he only banged chicks with size small panties and that he screamed “fuck yeah!” after landing goals. He could picture him already, shouting “fuck yeah! fuck yeah!” after landing Mikasa. Oh, God. The thought alone made his hands ball to fists and made him tremble with rage. No way in hell he’d allow that to happen. Immediately, his previous intentions of confessing his love to her fizzled away, and what replaced them was this copious worry, this bubbling anger. This fear.

Control, Eren, Control.

He swallowed.

“Miki.”

Fucking Samuel’s eyes flickered over the sight of him, up and down, sizing him up. Eren had a scab on his temple from his last fight that was slow to heal, making him seem pathetic against the grand flawlessness of Samuel.

“Eren,” Mikasa voiced with a small smile. And he couldn’t tell whether she was smiling at him or at the boy beside her. “What’s up?”

“Can we talk? In private?”

“Sure.”

Fucking Samuel reciprocated Eren’s glare with a flashy grin, tapping Mikasa lightly on the arm and whispering in her ear, “See you later.”

She waved. Something about the way her eyes lingered, how her thick eyeliner circumscribed her gaze like black clouds, made his heart hurt. He cleared his throat. Sighed.

“I haven’t heard from you in two weeks,” he told her. Mikasa’s expression was blank. She opened her locker, shrugging a shoulder.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Ballet. Being in my room. The usual.”

Eren grunted, her eyes glued far ahead to some insignificant point in her locker, not moving. He reached out and touched her, cupping the pert point of her chin, lifting it so that she’d look up, up, up at him. Her eyes were wide and beautiful, two deep pools of black. They lingered on him for a moment, then flitted away, her cheeks blazing bright pink and he couldn’t tell whether it was just her makeup of if she was blushing or what.

“Mikasa, please,” he whispered, his breath fanning her face. “Please. Look at me.” Slowly, her eyes rose, little by little, until they landed back on him, whence he finally said,  “Can we talk?”

Mikasa pulled his hand away from her. He had her now. Had her full attention. “About?”

“All this,” he said, fixing the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. Students bustled and milled around them, their lively voices fading to white noise. “What’s happened to you? This isn’t like you.”

She only sighed. “Is this about me beating up those seniors?”

“Hardly.”

“Then what, Eren?”

“You’re my best friend,” he pressed, nearly hissing. She flinched at his tone, and he huffed, ran a hand through his hair, told her softly, “You’ve been disappearing on me. And now I see you talking to Fucking Samuel?”

“Fucking what?”

“It’s a nickname we’ve given him in soccer.”

Mikasa gave a small laugh, and Eren’s insides leapt at the sound of it, pulled helplessly to her. He couldn’t remember the last time he reveled in her laughter, but this one didn’t seem that genuine at all. “Well, Sam’s pretty nice,” she said shyly, rummaging mindlessly through her locker. Then she murmured, “He’s taking me out to the movies on Saturday.”

Eren’s heart lifted from his chest and sank to the very bottom of his stomach with a hard bang. 

“He what?”

“Yep.”

“Miki, don’t go.”

“Why?”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t it seem odd to you that he only wants to talk to you _ now _ ? After—”

“After what?”

“All this,” he motioned vaguely to her attire. Mikasa squinted her eyes at him, her short hair falling before her face.

“Are you saying he thinks I’m easy now?”

“No!” Eren clamored, grunting, banging the back of his head against the lockers. “I’m saying he doesn’t take you seriously.”

Mikasa’s eyes ran over the entirety of him, scrutinizing. They lingered on his adam’s apple, his collarbone, his chest, then flew up to his eyes where she blinked and uttered cooly, “Well, I guess that’s up to me to decide.”

She turned to walk away, and Eren was left to stare at the back of her body, at the path she cleared as she trudged slowly through the mob of high schoolers. He wanted to cry, to scream, to reach out after her and grab her. Perhaps confessing to her now would stop all this. All this mess. Perhaps he didn’t need to control his emotions, but let them pour and pour and pour and so with that he called, “Mikasa!”

And she turned, slowly, slowly, to look at him, with people streaming affluently around her as if she were parting their sea. Even from all the way where he stood, he could hear her. 

“Yes, Eren?”

“Please,” was all he could muster. “Please. Take Care.”

**—o—**

It was then that Mikasa met her own eyes and found a complete stranger staring back.

Her reflection bore someone she could not feel was a part of her—that _ was _ her—at all. Mama’s gentle features were erased, replaced by this austere being, this assortment of piercings and black eyeliner and short bags and torn jeans and faded sweaters. She’d even gotten her belly button pierced behind Mama’s back at some grubby tattoo parlor where all her underage ballerina friends got their piercings done behind their own Mama’s backs. All just to feel something. Just to distract herself from the gaping chasm that bled in her soul. And for a moment, it worked. As the needle ran through her flesh, the sharp sting quelled all her other pains, assuaged them so that nothing else hurt, nothing else touched her.

Samuel was just another needle.

The world was just another needle.

Her phone buzzed on the bed, bearing texts from Eren ( _ Miki, pls be careful _ ), Armin ( _ Eren says you’re going out with Samuel now? _ ), Papa ( _ Your mother and I arranged for me to pick you up next week! Please, answer my calls _ ), and Samuel. But Samuel’s said nothing exciting, just some lame heart emoji followed by a bubble of  _ can’t wait to see you tonight, beautiful. _

Mikasa scoffed. Beautiful. If anything, that was the last thing anyone could describe her as now. Just look at her. She wore herself inside out, so that what showed was all the ugliness she carried in her heart, all the darkness, all the different reasons why she was the way she was. As she bore her eyes through her own, the words boiled in her being:

Mama and Papa split because of you.

You broke them.

It’s all your fault.

“I know,” she answered to her own reflection, staring at a fleck of dust in the dirty mirror. Everything about her room seemed, felt, dirty. Even though she literally scoured every inch of this place before moving in. She was just about to answer Samuel’s text when she heard a soft tapping sound.

For a moment, she stalled, thinking it was Eren throwing rocks at her window. Her heart pulsed happily at the thought, but then the sound came again and she realized it was Mama at the door, knocking very softly.

“Are you decent?” her voice was muffled by the cracks of their little home. Mikasa sighed, not even moving.

“Come in, Mama.”

She did.

Tentatively, her mother slunk into her room. She moved cautiously, so that it seemed as if she wasn’t even in her own home. “Uncle Levi called,” she squeaked, cringing at the way the floorboard groaned beneath her bare feet, still a stranger to the creaky spots in her room since she seldom ever entered it. She sat slowly on Mikasa’s bed, glancing at her phone as it lit up and vibrated beside her but then quickly looking away.

She stared at her daughter.

“You look beautiful,” she said.

What is it with that word, Mikasa thought. What is it with people using it and lying.

“Thanks,” she murmured faintly, pulling a stray lock of hair away from her face. Her skull earrings were bulky and heavy, pulling down on her ears, the ends touching the tops of her bare collarbones. She wore a sleeveless black top, ripped jeans, and old greasy converse. Mama seemed entranced by the odd concoction, marveling at every aspect of her daughter.

“My,” she whispered, holding a hand to her heart. “How you’ve grown.”

Mikasa was still. Very still. Because Mama was rising from her bed to creak across the floorboards all the way to her. She stood a head shorter than her daughter, and her heart ached at the realization, for when did time escape them so that tiny leotards and tutus transformed into this? When did Ningyo get replaced, unneeded? At what point did Mikasa shed her old self and resurrect into what she was now?

Mama sniffled, cleared her throat.

“Mikasa,” she smiled through the tears, “Can I brush your hair? Like we used to when you were little?”

She nodded, tears pricking her own eyes, and whispered, “Please.”

Mikasa took a seat in front of the mirror, her eyes staring back at her through two racooned circles, and she felt sorry for Mama. None of this was her fault. As she stroked the brush through Mikasa’s hair and the tresses slid between the bristles, lifting from her head before falling limply against her neck, Mama watched her daughter intently, seemingly reading through her skin to what laid beneath.

“Sweetie,” she voiced after a while, her hands gentle on her daughter’s shoulders. “Why are you crying?”

She hadn’t realized that she was.

Sniffling, Mikasa wiped at her nose, at the streak of black moisture that coursed down her cheek, ruining her makeup. Tears came unbidden these days, pouring by their own accord, seemingly detached from her. They spilled at their own will as Mikasa’s voice broke when she answered, “Mama, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“Oh, honey,” Mama began to cry also, and it seemed that tears also propelled themselves from her eyes without her consent. Rivulets ran down their cheeks as Mama wrapped her lanky arms around her daughter, her body jolting with a small sob.

“Why did he cheat?” was Mikasa’s sudden whisper. “We were so happy. We had everything. Why did Papa cheat?”

“Sometimes, Mikasa,” Mama breathed into her hair, her words trembling. “Good people do bad things. Please, do not hate your father.” Her subtle Japanese accent drew into her skull in jagged spikes, reminding her that they were different, foreign, strange.

That Samuel would never genuinely like her.

That it was only natural for Papa to be unfaithful to Mama in the name of some leggy blonde.

“I miss him,” Mikasa felt herself utter, but she did not hear the words. They were tacked to her throat, unmoving. “I miss him, Mama.”

“I do too,” her mother laughed suddenly, wiping snot from her nose. “God, isn’t that crazy? After everything, after all this, I still miss him.”

“Do you think you could ever forgive him?”

“I do not know.”

“Do you think you could ever love him again, Mama?”

“Mikasa,” Mama straightened, cupping her daughter’s cheeks with her knobby hands. She turned her face gently so that she’d look at her in the eyes and said, “I want you to understand something. I will always, always, love your father. And I will always love you. My choice to leave was not to abandon either of you, but to remove.”

“Remove what?”

“Myself.”

“But why?”

“When two people are no longer healthy for each other,” she smiled shakily, booping the tip of Mikasa’s ruddy nose with her finger. “It is out of love that they must remove themselves from each other. Please try to understand, I know this is hard for you. But being apart does not mean you are no longer together.”

Mikasa closed her eyes, ringing her hands around her mother’s thin wrists.

“I will never understand that,” she said.

“For now,” Mama said, smoothing her bangs away from her face. “All you need to be is my daughter. And Mikasa?”

“Yes?”

“I just want my daughter back.”

Mikasa opened her eyes, her eyelashes clumped together with mascara and tears. Her voice came out in a hoarse sigh, dislodging itself from her throat, and in a flash she saw glimpses of the father she’s been neglecting for the past month, of his big smiles and strong shoulders that held the entire world, of his honeyed words and strong chest that encased his big old heart, and she wondered how a man like that, knitted together from all the benevolence Kami had to offer, could betray his own family this way. Leave them. And perhaps Mama was right. Mikasa didn’t understand. She couldn’t, for she felt that being a part of love meant being together no matter what, as bonds cannot bind people if they are far apart. But she could not bring herself to say that to Mama. So instead she closed her eyes again and breathed. Breathed. Breathed.

“She’s right here.” And she needs you, Mama. She needs you.

**—o—**

Eren disliked a lot of people, and Fucking Samuel was pretty damn high on that list.

His stupid mocking tone, his stupid nasally voice and stupid half-lidded eyes that made him look like he was used to looking down on everyone. His stupid, stupid, stupid, stupidness. Gah! He hated him! The nerve he had, asking Mikasa out. Who did he think he was? Somebody worthy of her? As if. Nobody was worthy, nobody!

Heck, not even Eren.

Heck. Shit. Yeah. Not even him.

“I hate him,” Eren grumbled to the open air, watching Fucking Samuel from across the soccer field, his stupid smile a big crevice on his stupid face. Their coach blew his whistle and divided everyone into two teams, and of course Fucking Samuel had to be paired up with him. Of course.

“Hey, Jaeger,” he smiled, jogging to his side. From where he stood, Eren could smell the whole of him, his presence and his sweat. His voice was like a hair-raising screech in his ears, nails on a chalkboard. “Mikasa was real fun on Saturday. Wanna know what we did?”

“How about you fuck off?”

“Aw, don’t be like that.”

_ Tweeeeeeeeeee! _

A whistle’s shrill call exploded into the air, announcing the start of their game. Eren ran after the ball, ran as far away from Fucking Samuel as he could possibly get. Ran and ran and moments later, the ball was between his feet and he was kicking, running, kicking, when suddenly a flash of Mikasa sprinted through his eyes. He shook his head to try to clear it, but that didn’t work. Thoughts of her came prowling, slithering into every corner of his mind.

He saw her eyes. Heavy-lidded.

Her hair. A tousled mess.

Her lips. Parted.

And his gut wrenched at the thought that Fucking Samuel got to witness any of those things, when suddenly the ball was kicked from his feet so vigorously, he felt the rush of wind fan his ankles from the blow.

“Fuck yeah!” Samuel cheered, landing their first goal. “Fuck yeah!”

“Good job!” Coach yelled between cradled hands. “Keep it up, Sam!”

Eren’s blood boiled.

They ran across the field like a horde of ants, and it wasn’t long before sweat trickled down Eren’s face and he had to wipe at it with his jersey. He struggled to keep his mind straight, his heart throbbing with green, green envy at the thought of Fucking Samuel laying a hand on Mikasa—albeit even a chaste one. When suddenly, he heard his voice beating behind him, raspy with pants.

“Come on, now,” it said. “I thought you were friends.”

“Leave me alone,” Eren growled, and Fucking Samuel’s laugh echoed through the field, a booming  _ ha ha ha _ that pounded at his skull.

Eren knew why he was doing this. He was taunting him. Boys only liked Mikasa from afar because she was pretty, but up close they called her names, called her Chicken Curry, Slanty Eyes, Chink, Gook, all sorts of titles that made his teeth grit and his hands coil. So he’d protected her. All this time, protected her. But when was it that he’d turned his back and this cockroach of a man had slunk beside her? Eren hated himself for allowing any of this, any of Samuel to come a hair of a distance from Mikasa.

_ I don’t need you to protect me, Eren _ , he could almost hear her say.

_ I can take care of myself. _

Well, apparently not, he thought, peering at Fucking Samuel, at his glistening muscles and cackling laugh.

“Jerk,” he whispered. Then continued to play.

Despite being on the same team, they never passed the ball to one another. If Coach noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he allowed Samuel to ram his entire body against Eren, sending him straight to the ground. 

“Hey!” he screamed, scrambling to his feet, staring up at Samuel’s colossal figure. He cast a shadow over him, he was so big. Amid the entire soccer field, they stood frozen, glaring at one another, their teammates whooshing by around them in pursuit of the ball.

“Hey, Eren,” Samuel grinned, his brown hair plastered to his forehead. “Ever heard what they say about Asian girls?”

“Watch your mouth.”

“You know what they like to eat, right?”

“I said watch it!” He was shouting now, the veins of his hands protruding behind his fists.

Fucking Samuel didn’t say anything, instead he held both hands apart in front of him as if he were holding someone’s back, and thrust his hips in an insinuation of doggy-style that made Eren’s jaw hang slack.

And that was when it happened.

The ball was passed to Eren and he grabbed it with both hands and sent it shooting straight to Samuel’s stupid, beaming face. It hit him with a loud crackling sound.

Blood poured into the air.

And Eren catapulted his entire being into him, pulling him to the ground and straddling his waist and sending out punch after punch after punch after punch—

“Eren Jaeger!” Coach screamed, ruddy with anger. “Stop it!”

Their teammates ran to circle them, chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and only one student thought to try to break them up as Coach jogged toward them, which sent Eren staggering. At a loss for balance, he felt Samuel’s fist meet his jaw, then his face, then his stomach, and all he could do was groan and roar and clamber back to his feet, pushing Fucking Samuel back down onto the grass and pummeling his face with fists that hissed, “Not my Mikasa, not my Mikasa, not my Mikasa!”

**—o—**

She ran.

But by the time she got there, it was too late. The soccer field was filled with people save for the one she was looking for. “Where’s Eren?” she asked the coach, to which she was replied to with an annoyed grunt and a finger pointing out to the school building.

The principal’s office.

She waited. She waited at the bench near the school parking lot and texted for him to meet her there. And it took him a long, long time but when he appeared, drenched in sweat and covered in blades of grass and blood, her heart sank. “Eren,” she gasped, rising to her feet. He towered over her, and she couldn’t remember when he’d grown this much, this fast.

She thought of Carla.

I’m sorry, she wanted to say to her. I couldn’t protect him. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

“I’m sorry,” one of them said. Eren. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and Mikasa bit her lip, scouring her eyes over the entirety of him. She wiped at the blood on his temple with her sleeve, grabbed his raw knuckles and kissed them.

“I heard what happened,” she whispered, closing her eyes, breathing in the smell of grass and blood on his fingertips. “Why, Eren? Why fight?”

“Oh,” he scoffed, wrenching his hand from her grasp. “Now you’re asking  _ me _ that? What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I got suspended from soccer, did you know that?”

“Then why did you beat up Samuel?”

“Why did you go out with him?!”

“Why are you shouting?”

“Because I’m mad!”

“Why?”

“Because—!” He groaned, throwing himself on the bench. His face fell to his hands. He sighed, “Forget it.” And he hated the way his skin prickled when her soft hands found the skin behind his neck, when she sat next to him and brought her body so close to his. She stroked him, a consoling gesture, and he couldn’t bring himself to swat her away.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she breathed after a while, her voice a small tweet in the wind. The sun was setting around them, a splendorous explosion of orange, purple, red, caressed lightly by cotton candy clouds. “Look,” she whispered. “Look up.”

Slowly, he did.

And what he found was her eyes staring down at him, barren, with no makeup. Her bulky piercings were gone too. All she wore was their school uniform and her converse, but everything else was simple. Bare. 

“Mikasa,” he began, but she shook her head, cajoling him to silence.

“I didn’t do anything with him,” she stated simply. Eren only sighed.

“I know,” he said, wincing at the cut on his lip. “God, I know.”

“So why did you hit him?”

“He was being disrespectful, talking bad about you.”

“Words mean nothing.”

“They mean everything to me.”

“They shouldn’t.”

He ran his hands through his hair, strands blowing in the wind, damp with his sweat. He had to smell awful, but Mikasa didn’t seem to mind. She scooted closer to him, the side of her thigh brushing up against his leg. 

“Doesn’t it bother you, Mikasa?” he asked her. “The names they call you? All the racist slurs?”

Her lips were pursed, shoulders squared. She answered curtly, “They don’t define me. They can bark as much as they want, but I will never let them bite me.” And then Eren looked away. She sounded too much like her own mother. He wished so much that the divorce would’ve never happened, that he could patch up her parents and their lives with all the love he had so that no fights, no piercings, no Fucking Samuel ever had to occur. But Mikasa was benevolent, clasping his chin in her small hands and saying, “Perhaps you could learn to do the same.”

His mouth opened. Closed.

And his skin throbbed with pain and desire. He was lined from head to toe with cuts and bruises, baring all of his vulnerability to her. Oozing. Oozing. And she was so accepting, so calm, so willing to let him spill into her waiting hands that he parted his lips to voice  _ I love— _

“When are you going to your Dad’s house?” was what came out instead. And he swallowed at the way she blinked at him, how her eyelashes touched the bottom of her eyebrows when they went all big and wide.

“Next week,” she answered, wary around the topic of her father. “Why?”

“When you do, text me. Let me know. Our bench. I want you to meet me there.”

“Why?”

Eren shook his head. The blood was beginning to dry on his face, encrusted on his bottom lip as it stretched with his smile.

“I have something very important to tell you,” was all that he offered. And Mikasa wanted to say more, but then he landed a wet, hard kiss on her cheek, flinching at the pain it brought him and cursing lightly under his breath before pottering away.

“See ya, Mik.”

And as she watched him fade into the parking lot, absorbed by the street and cars, it occurred to her that she never got to thank him for breaking Fucking Samuel’s nose.

**—o—**

One more suspension, they told him, and he would be expelled.

Oddly enough, the thought of being taken out of school didn’t seem to bother Eren as much as Mikasa had thought it would. But perhaps he was simply putting on a strong front. He did that often. Pretend that he didn’t feel as much as he truly did. Controlled.

Papa’s eyes were sad strangers, their light stolen away, replaced by the shadows of incessant guilt. Mikasa couldn’t stand to stare at them for long, so that the second she hopped out of his car on her childhood driveway in her childhood home with all their childhood memories, she said, “I’m going over to Eren’s place.”

“Already?” her father queried, his hair an unbrushed mess, his body slumped over on the driver’s seat, defeated. Slowly, he unbuckled his seatbelt, and his daughter blinked, waited for him to jump out of the car, to slam the door shut, sending off an echo that crowed among the trees, disrupting the birds’ cry and Mikasa wanted to tell him, tell him,  _ Papa I love you but you’ve hurt me and you’ve hurt Mama but I still love you and that confuses me because how could I adore someone who tore me from my home who crumbled its walls and now carries himself so grimly Papa please understand that I want to forgive you but I can’t even look at you right now my heart is too soft and the wounds it carries are still fresh and I am yet to learn how to love people without letting them kill me. _

“Yes,” she whispered, feeling herself begin to cry. No. Not here. Not here, she could not—would not—cry here. In front of him. So she turned quickly on her feet with her tote bag wrapped around her back and walked, walked, walked all the way to the bench she grew up in, augmenting the space between her and this old home as much as she could, leaving her father to stare off at her dwindling figure. Distance served no purpose, however, as her heart was already left behind, locked within her past, the walls of the home she could smell all the way from where she was. 

She walked. 

Leaves crumpled underfoot, and she walked. 

The wind blew on her tears, and she walked.

She sniffled, wiped at them, and she walked.

Walked.

Walked until Eren standing in the distance was all she could see, until his body grew and grew and grew like the sigh of relief that burst from her lips as she stood before him, the willow tree on top of them swaying, singing, hissing with his breath of, “Mikasa. Hi. How are you?”

When was the last time she had been asked that?

“I’m not okay,” she uttered candidly, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. It seemed that all she did was cry these days. Cry and cry and there was no way to control these tears, to stop them, as there are no ways to silence a heart that wants to feel.

Eren wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. He held her and they stood there, stood there under the tree and the sun and by the bench where they waited countless of days for the school bus they shared as children, and now they were fifteen and all grown and Mikasa lived in an empty room with empty parents in an empty home. But Eren’s heart was so full, so full as it thrummed against her own chest, and she swallowed every heartbeat as it gave her life, as it held her up together. Then he let her go and she felt herself crumble, felt her knees buckle and his hands find her face. “Come with me,” he whispered, and grabbed her hand. “I have something I want to show you.”

She followed him as they traipsed through the woods, stepping over protruding tree roots and fallen branches and deer shit and mud. He told her to close her eyes, and she did, clasping his hand tightly, letting him guide her. Guide her. Take all her pain away. In his hands, she fell freely, and he caught her, let her petals shed until nothing but a naked bud was left, and even then he still held her, still hoped that she would bloom. Still nurtured her. Kept her safe.

Mikasa was so tired of being strong.

And with Eren she could be weak, she could stumble on her feet and let him steady her, let him stop her and let go of her and say, “Now, open your eyes.”

She did.

Gasped.

“Eren,” came her wheeze, her throat tight, hands shaking. “Eren.”

“Remember this?” he asked her, motioning to their surroundings, to their meadow, to where Armin took them regularly at night to gaze at the stars. But no stars littered the sky that evening, it was the color blue that flourished all around them like speckles of paint an artist had dabbed onto the world with a giant brush.

“This is beautiful,” Mikasa whispered, standing in a circle of bushes and trees, all radiant with their azure blooms that danced subtly in the moving air. The sun was a giant, orange orb in the sky, waning, timing them. But Eren was quick. He promptly hid his hands inside his jean pockets, his t-shirt pressing across his torso in the wind.

“I brought you here because I think you should know, Mikasa,” he began, clearing his throat. “There is something I haven’t told you in years.”

She blinked at the endless flowers around them, digging her eyes through every petal, every swaying shade. “What’s that?”

“Armin told me how you used to plant delphiniums with your mom when you were little. And this divorce… well, it’s broken you. I brought you here to remind you of who you are, of the Mikasa we all know and love.” He cleared his throat, gazing around at all the flowers, and then, shyly, back down at her. His voice was a low drone in the sibilant air. “I wanna patch you back together, Miki. Fix you. I know I can.”

“We can’t fix people, Eren,” Mikasa answered simply, thinking of her parents. Of his.

“Maybe you’re right,” he shrugged, “but even then, I’m still allowed to try, aren’t I? I’ve felt… there’s something I have felt for a very long time, and I think now, more than ever, I should tell you. Like Armin told me to a very long time ago.”

“Armin?”

“Yeah.”

Mikasa gaped at Eren, unsure of what to think, say, do. She stood and stilled her trembling hands with pure will, awaiting his words. He was silent for a while, and she watched him, watched the hardened features of his face, how manly he looked. All worn and chiseled. Tired. Even at such a young age.

“I know you know I love you,” he blurted suddenly, stuttering on some words. He seemed nervous. He cleared his throat and tried again. “But I don’t think you understand how much.”

“What are you…”

“Please, let me show you.”

He stood so close now, so near, Mikasa could feel the heat radiating from his body. Her hands lifted, carefully to rest against his chest, whence she closed her eyes and waited. She felt him move lightly, felt his hands caress her earrings, her hair, smoothing the dark tendrils behind her ears before holding her face, and lifting it up, and placing her there until their gravities pulled at one another and his lips connected with hers. Soft. Fragile. He kissed her, held her in place.

Oh.

_ Oh. _

Mikasa felt herself rising, felt the rush of breath from his mouth go into her own and she breathed him in, absorbed him, wore him. Then his lips parted with hers and he kissed her again, kissed her harder, and she could hear the leaves rustling around them, cheering and cavorting and all the air in her lungs was sucked out of her and thrown into the world around them, for his tongue thrust into her mouth and she mewled, screwed her eyes shut, bunched his shirt in her hands, truly tasted him for the first time in her life. 

His hand was at the back of her head, pushing her closer, tighter, until they shared each other’s breaths and even though the kiss grew clumsy, she could feel herself pulling him in just as feverishly, with as much need.

Suddenly, she pushed him away, gasping, both of them red in the face and panting for breath. “You just—” she began but could not finish, for her lips tingled with remembrance, and her heart pumped all the blood in her at once.

She understood.

And even then, he still assured, “I love you.”

Mikasa felt the tears on her cheeks before she felt them in her eyes, and she slapped a hand on her mouth, stifling the small sob that erupted from her.

“Eren,” she hiccuped. “No.”

“It’s true,” he whispered, the wind tossing his hair across his face, the sun rays reflected in his irises. “It’s true.”

“How could you possibly love me like that?” she asked him, motioning to herself. “I am a mess. I’m a mess.”

Eren smiled, unfazed. “You’re my mess.”

Mikasa shook her head, crying, dizzy. “Eren, Eren.”

“I’m right here,” he told her, unveiling her face. He pulled her hands away from herself, held them to his body, to his heat. “I’m here. You have me.”

All of me, she heard him say under his breath. All of me.

“Look at me,” he told her, cupping her chin. He was so coy, so delicate, so new. Mikasa fell helplessly to him, snapping on her strings, twirling and reeling, biting her lip to stifle her cries when he uttered again, all calm and soothing,  “I love you.”

“I— I…”

“I have loved you all my life.” 

Mikasa sniffled. Balked. Cleaned the snot from her nose with her sleeve and said, “Eren?”

“Yes?”

“Can I show you how I feel right now?”

“Yes.”

Trembling, she shed her tote bag from her back and took off her skull earrings, her faded combat boots, her torn black top. She stood in her white undershirt and jeans, wiped the makeup off her face with her sweater until she was denuded and Eren’s smile shone brightly in the dwindling sunlight.

Mikasa threw her belongings to the side, unmasking her being, blooming from the inside out. She gave a long sigh, then tentatively traced the healing cut on his lower lip with her finger before leaning in to kiss it lightly, whispering against his mouth, “This is it. My answer.”

Eren grinned. She smooched his dimple, his cheek, the tip of his nose. And laughed.  _ Laughed. _

“So is this a yes?” he asked her between kisses, and Mikasa had thrown her arms around his neck, had suspended herself to that his biceps were at her ribs, his own arms coiled behind her waist. She cried of sadness and of joy, of worry and relief because loving Eren felt like being released, like being lifted up into the clouds, like soaring through the air with the fear of somehow falling. But she closed her eyes as saw only warmth, lost in the sanctuary of his arms. She’d loved him since she met him. Loved him even before she knew what love was. And she knew this since forever, knew this even before she was born, for when God had assembled all the creatures of the universe, he had woven the same soul into two separate bodies—Eren’s and hers. To have him like this now, to hear him say that what he felt surpassed what just friends feel for one another, it was like being redefined, like allowing her insides to unfurl with what she kept tightly shut within her. There was a life before and after this moment, a timeline before he’d kissed her quite like this. And now she was different. And now that gaping chasm in her filled. And now she thought that everything that ever happened—Papa, Mama, Samuel—everything, everything, had to occur to make way for this, to give birth to this moment. And she was thankful. And she was so thankful. 

“A thousand times,” she said, unscathed, unencumbered, so bright,  “yes.”

As the flowers surrounded their weeping figures, in awe at what flourished within, they fell on the grass in a tangle of squeals and jubilee. It was dangerous, being this happy. But they were young enough, naive enough, not to care.


	23. Dust Particles in the Morning Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains two smut scenes (not eremika, but still necessary) and is very prose-heavy. A lot happens. A. LOT.
> 
> I will be moving back to my native home soon and going to school/working so, unfortunately, chapters may start to come by a bit slower. But fret not, I will finish this story even if it kills me! A huge thanks to @hotnspicynoodles23 for betaing this chapter. Couldn’t have done it without you! Having that said, brace yourselves, and enjoy.

She’s practically vibrating in her skin by the time his hands reach her, searing through tissue and bone to the most intimate parts of her that ache for him in ways he’ll never know.

Fumbling with his belt, she sighs, works it loose just as he’s peppering quick hot pecks on her neck, sucking a dark mark right above her collarbone. “I want you,” she breathes helplessly, smacking his chest when he grins self-absorbedly. But she can’t help it. She’s such a mess. She’s always a mess when it comes to him.

He works his fingers between her thighs, pressing hard against the front of her panties and panting when she pins his bottom lip between her teeth and dips her hand past the front of his jeans. They say nothing when books and mugs and all sorts of items fall from her kitchen counter to the floor as he lifts her up and sets her there—nearly dropping her in the process.

“Focus,” she tells him, guiding his hands to her breasts.

His fingers contract around her pliant flesh. “Okay.”

And their haphazard dance resumes. Teeth clack together and nails scratch backs and her moans grow gradually louder as she tugs his shirt over his head, tracing her fingers over every godly line of his body.

“God, Eren,” Hitch whines, and it’s then that he feels his jeans pool around his ankles. Her fingers tangle in his hair as a pert nipple rushes into his mouth and he sucks, hard, rendering her useless. He doesn’t know how or when they end up on the floor, but she straddles his waist and takes her top off and starts to kiss her way down his body, grinning devilishly when he seeks to find her but she pushes him flat against the ground.

“Nah-ah-ah,” she carols, slapping his hands away. “No touching.” And he capitulates with a smirk, feeling her run her nails down his chest, stomach, hips, until they start to work at pulling down his briefs. She swirls circles on him with her tongue, nips marks with her teeth, mewls lightly against him before pausing to sit back. Blink. Stare.

That’s when his smile fades.

“Oh.” Hitch’s voice is flat. Immediately, Eren knows why.

“Shit,” he spits, covering his face with his hands. “Hitch, shit, I’m sorry.”

“Eren, it’s like the fifth time now.”

“I know! I— I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Is it me?”

“No! God, no, you’re beautiful.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t—” He can’t harden. “I don’t know!” He can’t fucking harden. “Hitch, I’m so sorry.”

She sighs, poking his flaccidity.

Eren promptly rises on his elbows, staring at her in disbelief. “Did you just poke my dick?”

“It’s so… dead.”

“So you poked it?!”

“Eren,” Hitch smiles, her little giggle melting against his cheek. “It’s okay.” She pushes him back down, kissing him. Her cattish grin and bright eyes ooze total confidence. “We can make this work.”

“How?”

“Just trust me.”

So he does. Jaw, collarbone, chest, navel, she makes her way down his frame until she takes him into her hand and starts pumping. Slow at first. Then a bit faster. And she makes sure to relish every bit of him, every inch. She’s so good at this. Always has been. And yet…

Two minutes pass.

Three.

Nothing.

Eren grunts, throwing an arm over his face. “I’m broken.”

“It’s like playing pool with a rope,” Hitch murmurs dejectedly. Eren glares at her. “What? I’m just saying.”

“Forget it,” he sighs. He’s about to move to retrieve his clothes when she holds him down with a heavy hand at his stomach.

“Hold up,” she commands, straddling his hips. Her golden curls fall scattered around her face, a tendril stuck to her supple lips. They curl into a smile. “I’m not giving up yet.”

Eren lays back down, staring straight ahead at the ceiling. She’s still working on him, staring intently as if she could resurrect him with her gaze. “I don’t get it. You used to be up in seconds.”

“I don’t get it either.”

“Erectile dysfunction is rare for your age. And for you, specially.”

“Anything else, Doctor?”

“Ooh, call me that again. That’s sexy.”

“Hitch, I’m not gonna role— whoa!”

She takes him into her mouth.

Eren bites his lip. Waits. For the tingling. The throbbing. Anything. But nothing. Nothing happens. Hitch is still gorgeous, still his gorgeous sexy friend but he can’t bring himself to feel anything when it comes to her anymore. There’s no pulsing excitement, no feverish breaths, not rush of electricity at the thought of having her. There’s just this stagnant iciness that settles between his legs, this limp disinterest.

Slowly, he closes his eyes.

Behind the privacy of his eyelids, he pictures her.

Her.

With her nighttime hair blowing across her face and her rosy kneecaps and fingertips. With her lisp, breathless voice and squeaky little laugh. He sees her on the poolside, her body beaming like a beacon shot straight to his eyes. Blinding. Amazing. So close.

Mikasa.

Her name flutters to life in his being, palpable and pure.

Gradually, shards of her image illuminate and come together, morphing into those features only she can possess. He parts his lips softly, and all he can taste is the way that bathing suit had fit around her sweltering figure, held together by fragile strings. The splash of water that brought her bare flesh just inches away from his, the forbidden barrier that floated, perched between them. How badly he wanted to break through.

Eren sighs. Hitch’s still working on him but all he feels is how two pools of ink had watched him, smiled at him, how she’d shielded herself from him and how horribly excited it all made him. He wouldn’t dare touch her, to peek below the water’s surface. He respects her. Solemnly. Utterly. And when they’d all gotten out, she made everyone turn their backs to her so nobody would see her. As if she had anything to be ashamed of. Anything she should hide. She was beautiful and enticing and when they’d hugged to say goodbye, he could feel her body through the barriers of clothes, feel the points of her breasts and the hollow junction between her thighs and still he had to pretend. Pretend. Pretend. Pretend not to want her, not to feel her, not to thirst.

His eyelids flicker, and he thinks of a time in some alternate universe where the girl breathing on him now is her, with streaks of her onyx hair spilling over him and all he sees is her raw skin, the goosebumps that swarm her, her strawberry mouth split open as her peaks tighten and pucker under his roving hands. His past is teeming with images of her flesh, of her little gasps and groans and pants of his name, like a branding stamp on his back that declares him hers and hers only.

He swallows and he sees her, so vivid, so complete now. She’s bent over on top of him. Her touch rippling through his body in gentle waves, titillating the surface of his skin, fingertips at his neck. They could coil around his throat and choke him, end him. But they stay still and her eyes are gentle, scrutinizing, blinking softly before they lean in to kiss him chastely on the lips, where he drinks her in and savours all of her, all of her, spilled freely into his mouth. And he can hear himself moaning faintly, calling for her: Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa. But what tears through the air to reach his ears is a voice that belongs to another woman, one he hardly recognizes until it utters his name twice.

“Well, Eren, would you look at that,” Hitch triumphs, smiling brightly up at him. “We did it.”

Lazily, he lifts his head to peer down at the hardness between his legs.

He gasps.

“Oh, no,” Eren blanches, all the color draining from his face.

“What?” Hitch frowns, wiping her mouth with her fingers. “What is it?”

“Oh, no,” he sobs, shaking his head. All he can say is,  “Shit, no, oh no, oh no, shit, no!”

“What, Eren?”

“It can’t be!”

“Eren?”

“I gotta go.”

“What?!” Hitch scoffs in her astonishment. “Seriously?” She’s about to protest but Eren’s already on his feet, getting dressed, ridding himself of her touch, all the remains of her. He runs his fingers through his hair, pulls his pants up, buckles his belt. And she just sits there, stares, watches him zip himself up and slip his shirt over his head, the little dimples at the small of his back mocking her because she’s unsatisfied and greedy and she groans, “Eren, come on.”

“I can’t,” he whispers, his back to her. Hitch rolls her eyes and reaches for a cigarette, lighting it with an annoyed huff. It tastes bitter, like ash and disappointment. She cocks her head to one side, watching him as he dresses, her bare back to the ground, smoke sliding out of her nostrils. Golden waves of her hair caress her face, spill onto the floor, and she takes another drag of her cigarette, running a hand through the tresses, twirling them in her fingers with a bruised lip clenched between her teeth. It is then that Eren turns to walk away but she stops him with a lifted leg at his shins.

“Not so fast, Fabio.”

He looks down at her. There’s tears in his eyes. Hitch hesitates before rising to her feet. Her steps are languid, geared toward him. She holds his face, reassures him.

“Eren, baby, it’s okay.” It’s a whisper, said to eyes that look everywhere but at her.

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of!”

“It’s not that,” he shakes his head, pulling her hands away from him by the wrists. And she wants so bad to grab him, to taste him and feel him and swallow the smell of him again. But he’s standing so close yet miles and miles away. His eyes are cloudy and damp, wailing,  “Hitch, I’m fucked.”

“Well,” she can’t help her smile, the trickling line she draws down his chest with her fingertips, “not really.”

He sighs.

“Bye.”

And he’s gone. The door slams shut and Hitch crosses her arms over her chest, royally annoyed. She hasn’t gotten laid in nearly a month since he started having his little problem. And he doesn’t say it, Eren doesn’t say it, and he would never, ever admit it, but Hitch knows, she just _knows_ , that the cause of his trifles is very simple, very linear.

It’s the girl.

**—o—**

The bed sheets rustle around her body as she squirms, seeking rest that has long since deserted her.

Eventually, Mikasa surrenders, rises, gives Jiji a few gentle strokes at her feet before walking to the bathroom. She starts a bath, stares at herself in the mirror as the clothes fall away from her body: Jean’s shorts, his shirt, her underwear. She sighs at her own reflection, absorbing every facet of herself with tired eyes. Her lanky frame. Her paltry curves. The dark, smiling crevices under her eyes. The faded scar on her cheek. The colorless hue of skin that stretches over her muscles—muscles that have gone soft from lack of use. From lack of caring. And she’s all grown and developed and made, having reached the peak of her existence. She feels old. Too old.

She’ll be twenty-six tomorrow. Twenty-six.

It’s hard to believe that this physical shell has aged so rapidly, aged to this point. Dipping her feet into the steaming water of her bath, Mikasa thaws into it, melts against the tub. She marinates in the hot soup for a couple of minutes, staring at her toes peeking above the surface, their uneven, crooked shapes, the nail polish she needs to retouch. But she’s stopped frequenting the salon. She’s stopped getting manis and pedis and massages and waxes. Blowing your rich fiance’s money for the sake of maintaining a conscientious image grows old after a while.

 _But a proper woman knows how to take care of herself_ , she can hear Jean’s mother chide.

_A proper woman knows how to keep her image._

_How to keep her man happy._

Well, to hell with being a proper woman, Mikasa thinks. She’s grown sick of being perfect and coy and proper. Who came up with these definitions of womanhood anyway? She’s at the prime of her life and she has to carry all these cumbersome obligations. A proper woman knows how to do many things—but what if she doesn’t give a shit about any of that stuff anymore? Isn’t she allowed not to give a shit every once in awhile? The way that men are allowed to do? Is she not allowed to make herself content above all? Before anyone else?

Why not?

The water’s surface seethes as she turns, rubbing soap on her limbs vigorously as if she could clean herself of all these ideas and their twisted marring nature. She thinks of her friends. Hitch doesn’t abide by any rules of society. She sleeps with who she wants when she wants and honors her carnal desires. Ymir was practically carved out of rebellion, living life to her every whim. Sasha made herself—literally _made_ who she is now as a person out of nothing but sheer will and dedication. And even Historia, with her regal air and quiet smiles is all punch and kick and bite. Heck, if none of the girls abide by these dumb rules, why should she? Why should she need to be so damn perfect compared to them? To the rest of the world?

To marry Jean?

To be right for him?

Is that what her life has culminated to? To shadow a man?

 _But you’re different,_ she hears a voice in her head say. _You’re not like them. You know that._

She can only sigh at that.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a soft rap at the door. For a moment, Mikasa thinks it’s Jiji, but then the door creaks on its hinges and Jean appears. Tall. Handsome. All dressed for work.

“Hey, beautiful,” he smiles, his pearly teeth gleaming. “Can I come in?”

Mikasa brightens, motioning for him to come closer with her finger.

He laughs. Potters over. Bends. Kisses her softly on the lips.

“Mmm,” he hums, cupping the pert point of her chin. She can feel his thumb graze the edge of her jaw, tracing the bone all the way to her earlobe. “You smell like lavender.”

“New soap,” Mikasa simpers. “I bought it at a stand some days ago. In the city.”

His pale eyebrows come together in a frown. “What were you doing all alone in the city?”

Mikasa plays with the buttons of his shirt, twisting them. “Um…” she barely utters, “buying soap?”

“Right.”

Well, that was awkward.

“I like this new soap.” In a sudden show of affection, Jean kisses her forehead before burying his face in the crook of her neck to kiss her throat. “I like it on you,” he whispers, his breath fanning the cool film of water on her skin.

“Jean,” she shivers, her hands small on the broad expanse of his chest.  “It’s my birthday tomorrow.”

“I know, baby,” he smoothes her hair behind her ears, smiling brightly. His eyes crinkle, the lines around them spidering out like crooked little roots. And it hits her how much older he looks. How worn. “I took off work so we can spend the whole day together.”

She can’t help her little squeal of joy.

Jean laughs. “My wife is adorable,” and he kisses her again. Again. Again. But when Mikasa’s hands pull on the lapels of his shirt to bring him closer, he fizzles away. Lets go of her. Stands.

“I have to go,” he says, wiping the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb. And Mikasa has been here so many times before, has lived through this very situation so often, that the hot anger that used to fill her has cooled down to a simmer. She nods, soaping her arms and legs a second time so that his eyes linger on the naked planes of her skin, but just as they cling hungrily, she sends him away.

“Bye, Jean.”

He smiles and goes. But before she’s alone again, before she can submerge herself into the water and count how long she can hold her breath, Jean stops by the door and turns, looks at her.

“Mikasa,” he tells her finally. “Please remember the banquet today.”

She nods. Because how could she ever dream to forget, Jean? She knows how important work is to you. How direly, illogically, annoyingly important.

**—o—**

“It’s my friend’s birthday tomorrow,” Eren tells his doctor, beaming brightly as he does. “Isn’t that great?”

“That’s wonderful,” Doctor Hanji smiles, tapping his joints with a small hammer to check his reflexes. Her wild auburn hair flits out of her ponytail like palm leaves, swaying as she moves. “Thinking of doing anything special?”

His left foot jerks forward with a firm tap at his kneecap. He laughs, amused at how the body works, how it just knows when to react and what to do so instinctively. It’d be nice if it knew when to get hard.

He clears his throat.

“Actually, I don’t know yet. Maybe. We’ll see.”

Dr. Hanji nods, the wild plumes of her hair bouncing. After some moments, she removes the stethoscope draped around her neck, slips the bell beneath Eren’s shirt and holds the cold metal circle to his bare chest, telling him to breathe deeply.

Inhale.

“I think getting them a small cake won’t be a bad idea?” she proposes, her thick glasses glinting in the light.

Exhale.

“Her,” Eren corrects as he’s sighing. He sucks in a mighty blow of air. Her eyebrows rise.

Inhale.

“What was that?”

Exhale.

“It’s a her, not a them.”

“Ah, so she’s a lady.”

“That she is.”

“One more, Eren.”

Inhale.

“A special lady or just… a lady lady?”

Exhale.

“She’s special. Very special.”

Hanji removes the bell from his chest, unplugging her ears. “Good,” she smiles, draping the stethoscope around the back of her neck again. It hangs like a dead animal, stocky and heavy looking. “Good for you.”

Eren nods, and Hanji’s nose crinkles, the way Annie’s sometimes does and it makes him laugh, makes him think of her. He misses her. Hasn’t seen her since New Year’s and it’s already February. She stopped coming to practices, stopped answering texts. But she does this sometimes. Falls off the face of the earth only to return like nothing happened.

And Eren knows why. He just pretends he doesn’t.

Dr. Hanji clears her throat, pulling him from his reverie. Her thin lips are shaded crimson, the masculine lines of her face dusted with a bit of makeup so that they are assuaged to milder edges, but still she looks very much her age. Much older than him. And wiser.

She scribbles something on her notepad, then turns to look at him. Her red lips stretch wide, almost wickedly. “Your lungs are healthy, which is good,” she says, smiling, pointing at his pants with the tip of her pen. “Now, how’s that problem with your member going?”

Eren groans loudly. “Jesus, Doc, do you _have_ to call it that?”

“Oh?” her large brown eyes twinkle mischievously behind her glasses. “What other names would better suit your liking? Penis? Cock? Ding-dong?”

He slaps a hand on his face. “And to think you went through ten years of medical school just to say that.”

She shrugs a shoulder, holding up her hands. “What can I say? I’m a professional.”

Eren shakes his head. “Well, the problem’s still there, to answer your question.” He scratches the scar on his palm, sighing. “But I discovered I don’t have erectile dysfunction after all.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m just fucking the wrong girl.”

Hanji gives a hearty laugh. Her whole body trembles with her giggles, an earthquake in her chest. She pushes her glasses up to the top of the head, her long eyelashes fanning outward like mascara coated spider legs. “Ah, so the way to fix this is to fuck the right girl?”

“Sure. Except, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s engaged to another man.” It comes out as a drone, as some imperceptible aspect of his life he doesn’t like to admit actually exists. Because he _can_ get hard, it’s just that it’s only when he thinks about _Mikasa_. Because not only does his life have to be difficult enough as it is, but now his own body has to betray him also.

Eren throws his head back, his skull meeting the wall. “It fucking sucks, Doc.”

Hanji whistles. “That’ll surely do it.” And she smiles at how Eren nods, scribbling something else on her notepad. She moves to her laptop at the other side of the room, taking a seat on the metal chair perched beside it with a soft grunt. “So, Eren. Any questions for me?”

His answer is quick. “Can I ask you about love?”

Hanji smiles benevolently. “I’m a physician, not a therapist.”

“I’ll ask you about my health then.”

She shrugs. “Sure.”

“My mom…” Eren begins, his posture faltering a little. “She was sick, you know. Died before she even reached her thirties. My old doctor said the chances of me inheriting what killed her are high because she was such a close relative and I’ve already started noticing symptoms.”

Hanji nods. Her smile’s gone. “Yes, I read about that.”

Eren peers at the scar on his palm, tracing it over and over again with his vision. For what feels like a long time, he says nothing. Then he looks up. Devoid of any expression. His voice is cold, barely escaping the tight passage of his throat.

“You see, Doc, I’ve loved sick people,” he says. Still ice. Still distant. “I’ve loved sick people all my life, so I know what sickness looks like. I know what death looks like. I know it. So they sent me to get some lab tests and I still haven’t opened the letter I got back to check the results. Because, I just, I know. I know what the results are already.”

Hanji pushes her glasses back up in front of her eyes. She clears her throat, straightens her jacket, a nervous habit Eren can recognize. She asks him,“But what if you’re wrong?”

He shakes his head, smirking. “Highly unlikely.”

“Stubbornness is not a virtue, Eren.”

“It is for me.”

His doctor gives a long sigh, rubbing her sleepless eyes. “Well, then. All I can tell you is that you seem to be in good shape—physically, anyway. And I’m glad you discovered the root of your, erm, problem. Would you still like me to prescribe you some medication?”

Eren laughs as if she’s just said a joke. “Nope.” He grins, his bright eyes twinkling. “I don’t do meds.”

“Fair enough.”

“Thanks, Doc.” He pats the small bed he sits on, the flimsy sheet of paper underneath him tearing easily. “We all set?”

“All set.”

“Cool. See ya.”

He hops off. Trudging over to the door, he gives Hanji one small wave of his hand. But as his fingers ring around the doorknob and he twists, pulls, takes a step to leave, she stops him with a single utterance of his name. Her tone is laced with something he can’t quite put his finger on. Something raw.

“Eren?” She sounds like his mother.

Turning slowly to face her, he lets go of the breath stuck in his lungs. “Yeah?”

A moment of silence. She seems to think, her eyes a bit tired and droopy. Words twisting uncertainly in her mouth.

“Open the letter,” she tells him finally. Not as a suggestion. As a command.

And as the door falls shut behind him, leaving her words to hang idly in the air, Eren pretends that he didn’t hear her. That he didn’t see the _sadness_ in her eyes. The _worry_ . The _knowing_ . The _hurt_.

**—o—**

Mikasa is champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. She’s body-tight black dresses and heels that cut scabs into her feet. She’s slow classical music and fake smiles that fade the second eyes can no longer see. She’s all masks and layers of makeup and forced laughter. She’s this adorned being when she’s around Jean’s work colleagues and friends. A magician of sorts.

She calls this her disappearance act.

Poof. Gone.

Her black dress clings to her body, ghosting over her curves. The straps cut into her shoulders, so thin they could slice her should their grip tighten even more. Her nail polish is chipped and uneven, a cry of audacity next to the perfect aura of the women that surround her. She stands near Jean but doesn’t cling to him, doesn’t nibble his ear or whisper small delights that make him smile to himself the way all the other women do to their husbands. They all wear bright whites and pinks and blues and yellows and Mikasa is a dark stain amid their incandescent perfection, a mark they all blatantly want removed.

Oh, how accustomed she’s become to feeling lonely amid a crowd of people. She meshes with her surroundings like a drop of oil dropped into a sea of water.

She’d finished the book Eren had let her borrow, _Illusions_ , before coming here. Armin’s favorite book. And now she can’t help but think of the protagonist, how he was convinced that the world was so real until a messiah showed him otherwise, saved him from the illusion of himself. We all live in our own bubbles of perception, our own fantasies of what is tangible and real. The world is teeming with ideas, with whispers of life no realer than dreams. So Mikasa pretends this is just another nightmare she needs to wake up from, one she needs to endure until Jean is satisfied and she can go home and clean off her mask and reappear.

None of this is real, she tells herself.

These conversations, these dresses, these people—all phony.

They live in their own illusions, where money is their doctrine and success is the clothes on their backs. Where superficiality is rewarded and visual aesthetic is more important than what lies within. Cover shit in gold and that is what this all is to Mikasa. Shiny, gilded, pretty shit. But still shit.

She curls her fingers through Jean’s and he takes a break from socializing to acknowledge her. “You okay?” he asks her, his face doing that thing where his expression doesn’t match the words coming out of his mouth. He’s in his own little bubble of reality, a reality where he’s engaged to a beautiful woman that he hauls to banquets and parties despite her incessant pleas for him not to.

 _Your wife is so mysterious,_ Mikasa had heard a man tell him some moments ago.

 _Doesn’t she ever talk?_ his wife had commented.

And all Mikasa could think about was Eren, how seamlessly he pulls words and smiles and life out of her. A magician of his own. A master of the appearance act.

“I’m fine,” she tells her fiance. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

He kisses her cheek. Whispers in her ear, “Don’t be too long.”

“I won’t.”

And she goes.

Her lungs screech for air and she hadn’t realized that she’d stopped breathing. Cold, prickling goosebumps line the skin her dress doesn’t cover and Mikasa knows what’s happening immediately. Another episode. Right now. Already.

The air in the bathroom is less suffocating, less maddening, without those people around. Her heels click on the tiled floors as she traipses over to stare at her reflection in the mirror, her trembling hands absorbing the cool surface of the marble sink. She feels like puking, the meager sips of champagne she’d downed earlier reeling violently in her gut. All of her shakes as waves carrying endless bouts of paranoia rush through her. But why? What is happening to trigger her this way? She hasn’t had this happen to her in months. Ever since her first visit to Eren’s apartment. Is this somehow linked to him? She can’t stop thinking about him. His name reverberates in her being, pulsing, full of breath and fire, churning in the depths of her soul.

She looks up. A string of hair hangs before her face, coiling around her parted lips. Her dark eyes stare, lifeless and vacant.

Breathe, she tells herself. Breathe.

Balloon. It inflates, inhale. It deflates, exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. But the room spins. And her body feels light but too heavy. Cold and too hot. So ugly, so wrong, like a slithering thing worming its way through the bathroom. She paces then stands still and sucks in a shaky breath, feeling her lungs grow. Get a hold of yourself, Mikasa. Brea—

_Bam!_

A stall behind her explodes open and Mikasa jolts in her own skin, nearly peeing herself.

“There you are!” a woman’s voice echoes loudly behind her. She stands with her heels on the toilet seat, her golden shimmering dress bunched around her legs.

Mikasa’s heart balks. “Wha—?”

“Finally!” the woman carols, and Mikasa whips around to face her. Blinking. Gasping.  “I’ve been waiting for you for nearly an hour!”

“Sasha?”

“In the flesh!”

Mikasa shakes her head, flabbergasted. She holds a hand to her forehead, another to her frenzied heart. “What are you doing here?”

Sasha, in her pretty dress and sparkly pumps and marcelled hair, hops off the toilet with a loud _clack_ of her heels _._ She runs her hands down her figure, dusting herself off, the bangles around her wrists rattling. She’s a frenzy of energy, snickering and snorting, her curls bouncing boisterously around her head _._  “Well, my parents own a busi—”

“No,” Mikasa shakes her head, releasing the breath that had lodged itself in her throat from the scare. “I mean, here. In the bathroom.”

“Oh.” Sasha laughs, draping her arms around Mikasa’s quivering frame. She hugs her tightly, steadying her. She doesn’t speak again for some time, until Mikasa’s heart is a steady drum and her pulse is ferocious but even. Finally, she grins, “Waiting for you, silly!”

God. Mikasa can’t help her own laughter. Her friend is insane.

They pull apart and they start laughing together, their giggles echoing through the walls. Sasha pulls her hair behind her ears, leaning in close to whisper, “Wanna get out of here?”

Mikasa’s smile is unnaturally flashy. “Is that even a question?”

“Coolio.” Sasha clasps their hands together, squeezing tightly. “Let’s go.”

Their heels make noise and Mikasa’s old panic thaws like melting ice, dribbling off the cracks of her body. She queries fleetingly, in a voice that does not sound like her own, “What about Jean?”

Sasha doesn’t even flinch. She wipes her lipstick off of her mouth with a clean swipe of her hand, cleaning off her own mask. “Don’t worry, girlfriend,” she assures her, booping the tip of her nose with the pad of her pointer finger. And Mikasa thinks for a moment that all things may be illusions after all, phantoms born from our own imagination. But she wants this moment to be real. To be realer than anything. Because her friend’s smile is so big and inviting, her eyes two puddles of warmth, her lively mouth parting to utter, “I’ve got you covered.” And Mikasa thinks that if all things are dreams after all, this is one she doesn’t want to wake up from.

**—o—**

“I can’t believe that worked.”

“What can I say? Jean trusts me.”

“A little too much, if you ask me.”

“What, you jelly?”

“Not at all. I’ll be married to him soon, after all.”

“Oh, yeah. That.”

“What?”

“How’s that going?”

“He keeps postponing the date. Not that it annoys me or anything.”

“That sounds like sarcasm.”

“I’m in no rush to get hitched, honestly.”

“Speaking of Hitch, have you seen her lately?”

“Not since last week.”

“She’s having, erm, problems.”

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently, she hasn’t gotten laid in a month.”

“Ah, that makes two of us.”

“Really, Mikasa?”

“Oh. Did I say that out loud?”

“You totally did.”

“Poop.”

“Hey, welcome to the club! I’m still a virgin.”

“I’ve practically revirginized by now.”

“Mikasa, oh my god!”

“I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Bahahaha! I’m gonna pee!”

“Sasha, control yourself.”

“We’re almost there.”

“Where are we going?”

“My place!”

“For what?”

“It’s a surprise. What? Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

“Will Eren be there?”

“Why, do you want him to?”

“No.”

“Look at you, you’re all pink!”

“It’s just the cold.”

“You’re blushing!”

“Be quiet.”

“Mikasa, your friendship with Eren is absolutely adorable.”

“I said _shh._ ”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop.”

“Thank you.”

“One more thing, though, okay?”

“What.”

“He’s got a surprise for you too.”

**—o—**

They arrive at Sasha’s apartment building a quarter before eight o’clock.

The sun has long since set and the sky is a vast stretch of darkness, city lights radiating their glow like perfectly arranged constellations. And, as Sasha scrambles to find the right key to unlock the front door, Mikasa gazes at the scribbles in pen on the line of buzzers by the jamb.

_Dreyse._

_Braus._

_Jaeger._

Their names shining in the night, enticing little murmurs to come inside, come closer. Sasha gives a triumphant little squeal and pushes the large wooden door open with her foot, motioning for Mikasa to follow.

Once upon a time, she’d been standing in this very spot, gazing at the snow that settled quietly around her, buzzing and buzzing until the door magically drifted open, like a whisper pulling her forward. And she’d crossed the threshold into this separate little world, into the little world of Eren’s apartment, his own home. And now look at where she is, at how she follows quietly behind Sasha and gazes up at the flight of stairs she’s climbed countless times before to visit Hitch and Eren, as if the promise she’s made to herself years ago to never see him again squandered the second that latch had unlocked and a pair of large green eyes smiled at her. That promise belongs to a different Mikasa, she thinks, and this Mikasa is new. This Mikasa is braver. Happier.

This Mikasa stands sheepishly behind Sasha as she pushes the door to her apartment open. This Mikasa stares at the black mantel that covers everything inside. This Mikasa steps in and raises a questioning brow at her friend’s ginormous smile when suddenly, the lights flick on and a chorus of “Surprise!” bounces up from behind every couch and table and counter to beam brightly at her.

Her friends, all in jeans and hoodies and t-shirts and dresses, hold balloons and toot their whistles and fix the paper hats on their heads and scream, “Happy birthday, Mikasa!”

And this Mikasa jumps, slaps a hand to her mouth. She peers quickly at Sasha, who picks up a whistle and blows hard, cackling. And she can feel the tears welling in her eyes, the tremulous light of the room dancing in her vision.

“Aw, she’s crying!” Hitch giggles, and it is then that Eren’s laugh echoes through the room.

Mikasa gasps.

“Eren,” she whispers. He stands quietly among his friends. Confetti and balloons and wispy curls of paper hang around him like a bouquet of different colors, all bursting in a flare of gorgeous light. She feels a warm wetness trickle down her face, and she cups her hands over her eyes, sniffling. Never, in her nearly twenty-six years of life, has anyone ever done this for her.

“It was Eren’s idea!” Historia peeps in front of her. She pulls her hands away from her face and wipes the tears that spill down her dewy cheeks with her thumbs. “It’s okay to cry,” she whispers, Ymir grinning behind her, giving her a playful little punch at her shoulder, which Mikasa makes sure to return—but harder.

Everyone laughs.

Rounds of hugs are distributed. It takes about a whole five minutes to envelop everyone in Mikasa’s arms, and she still sniffles and giggles through a nasty explosion of snot when Reiner makes a joke before wrapping her up in his gigantic biceps. When she reaches Eren, the tears on her face have cooled. She wipes her nose timidly. It glows. Pink.

“Hey, stranger,” Eren smiles, with Annie standing comfortably beside him. “Happy birthday.”

“It’s not until tomorrow,” is all she can think to say.

“We know,” Eren grins, his hands never leaving his pockets. They ache to touch her, to feel that skin and that dress and the soft perfume radiating from her body. But he’s careful. Always careful. The only contact they make is when the tips of her fingers graze the misting of blonde hairs on his forearms. She sighs happily, her eyes slanted and beautiful and misty with light.

“Happy birthday, Mikasa,” Annie peeps, managing a tiny smile. There’s a bruise on her forehead, another beginning on the sweep of her neck where her hoodie begins and covers the rest of her. She taps Eren on the chest with the back of her hand, commenting rather awkwardly, “We know you like chocolate, so Sasha made you cupcakes.”

Mikasa’s eyes shrink with her smile.

Then the music starts. And the dancing starts. And Sasha startles Eren by literally pouncing onto his back and wrapping her legs around him, declaring, “Piggy back ride!” Mikasa laughs at the way he stumbles and sighs, and before she can open her mouth to say anything, Reiner scoops her up off the ground and hoists her against Bertholdt’s back. Instinctively, she circles her limbs around him, her dress rucking up her thighs. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers to him, but all he does is laugh.

Laughter seems to be the tune of her new life, the theme of this Mikasa.

Bertholdt lugs her weight around on his back effortlessly, asking, “Where to, your majesty?” and she gazes around at the flurry of life around her, at all the gleeful faces and homey scents and sounds, the whirls of her friends’ bodies swaying and moving to the music that pulses from the walls.

Everyone is here. For her.

Tonight, she is important.

“Nowhere,” she tells him, gazing sleepily at Eren from across the room, wallowing in the way his adam’s apple throbs with his laughter, how his cheeks turn a soft shade of red in the light, his nose casting a shadow across his features, his body taut and tall and strong and omnipresent.

Nowhere, she whispers, this time to herself. For there is nowhere else she’d rather be.

**—o—**

“Okay, ready, Mikasa?”

“For what?”

“We’re gonna play truth or dare!”

“Aw, shit, I hate this game.”

“Quiet, Bert. It’s the birthday girl’s place to decide if she wants us to play.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Whoo! That’s the spirit.”

“She’s drunk.”

“Ymir’s always drunk.”

“Annie, you start.”

“Fair enough.”

“Mmm, I dunno if that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not, Eren?”

“Because—”

“Eren.”

“Damn it.”

“Truth or dare?”

“Uhh… let’s start with truth.”

“Have you ever eaten cold pizza?”

“I love cold pizza.”

“Ew!”

“Okay. Your turn.”

“Alrighty. Um, hm, okay. Mikasa.”

“Uh oh. Yes, Eren?”

“Truth or dare.”

“Dare.”

“Ooh, feisty.”

“I dare you to…”

“Come on, dude, think of something.”

“I dare you toooooo—”

“Eren, hurry up!”

“Chug that entire beer bottle in five seconds.”

“Pfft. Watch this.”

“Oh, my god, she’s doing it.”

“Shit, she’s really doing it!”

“Whoo! Go Mikasa!”

“Sasha, my ears.”

“Sorry.”

“Ahh. There. Done.”

“Shit, woman.”

“Eren, you suck at this.”

“How was I supposed to know she’d down the whole damn thing like that?”

“Mikasa, your turn.”

“Hmm, okay. Hitch.”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to… kiss… someone in this circle.”

“Ha! That the best you got?”

“Do it, do it, do it!”

“Alright. Sasha, come here.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh sHIT!”

“Ahhhh!!! She’s doing it!!!”

“Ohhh snap!”

“Hahahaha!”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough, girls.”

“What, Conrad, you getting turned on?”

“Eat a sock, Ymir.”

“ _Connie._ ”

“Hitch, your turn.”

“I dare everyone to open Mikasa’s presents for her right now.”

“Wait, there’s presents?”

“Hey! You can’t just skip straight to a dare!”

“Sure I can. I just did.”

“Ugh.”

“So, Mikasa, what do you say? Wanna see your presents?”

“Is that even a question?”

“Fuck yeah, Mufasa!”

“Ymir, take a nap.”

“Shhh, babe, tone it down a little.”

“Sorry, boo-boo.”

“Anyway. Let’s begin!”

**—o—**

They sit in a circle. A single beer bottle is passed around, everyone taking sips, sharing their saliva. They each hold a present, boxes and folds of wrapping paper squatted on their laps. Sasha claps her hands together happily, passing around black velvet cupcakes. It’s basically just chocolate batter with dark color dye, she explains, and after everyone has their cupcakes and round of beer, they smile at one another. Only Eren stares straight ahead, something imperceptible clouding his gaze.

Annie sits beside him, a present in her hands. When her steely gaze falls on Mikasa, she gives another small smile. And her bruises are hidden under locks of her hair, like markings one needs to bury deep into her to find. But they stand out blatantly to Mikasa, and she thinks fleetingly what the girls had told her some weeks ago, how Eren had beaten the crap out of her father for being abusive. And was that still the case now?

All she can think to do is smile back.

“Let’s begin,” Hitch grins. She nods at Eren. “Ready?”

“Yup.” His large hands lift a small brooch from his lap. It’s wrapped in yellow parchment paper with a note taped to the top, but the outline is enough to give the present out to Mikasa. She grins, smiling even brighter when he says, “Shit, wait. I can’t read this, I don’t have my glasses.”

“Here,” Hitch hands him her own, retrieving the pair from the top of her head.

“Thanks,” he squints, fixing the lenses over his eyes. He holds the note up to his face, ignoring Annie when she grunts something about him being a grandpa. “It’s from Connie,” he says. Everyone ooh’s and aah’s.

“Go on,” Ymir motions for him to continue. “Read it.”

Eren clears his throat. “Dear Mikasa,” he reads aloud, “Your face is very nice— Dude, oh my god.”

Everyone chortles loudly, the tips of Mikasa’s ears burning bright pink.

“Nice one, Conrad,” Sasha glares at the man beside her, rolling her eyes at his boyish grin.

“Anyway,” Eren continues, pushing the glasses further up the bridge of his nose. A strand of his hair slips out from behind his ears and dangles over his eyes, curling at the end like a hook. “I hope you like this brooch I got you. It’s a rose. You make us all think of roses. Because you smell good— Oh, fuck me.”

“Just read it, Eren!”

He moans, “But it’s painful.”

“Give it to me.” Annie snatches it from his hands. “Because you smell good and your cheeks are always red,” she finishes. “Happy birthday. The end.”

Everyone claps their hands and cheers.

“Thank you, Connie,” Mikasa smiles at him from across the circle. He nods, lacing his fingers through Sasha’s and holding her hand on his lap. They look so comfortable together, like two pieces of the same puzzle. They just fit.

The brooch is handed over to Mikasa and she buries it against her chest, smiling softly. She peeks coyly at Eren, who’s staring at her with his chin in his hands, smiling too.

Thank you, she mouths to him.

No problem, he mouths back.

“My turn,” Annie says, picking up the present on her legs. “It’s from Bertholdt. A hat.”

“God,” Hitch laughs. “No tact, Annie.”

“What? It’s a hat.”

“Leave her alone,” Historia defends, tapping Hitch lightly on the shoulder.

“Anyway,” Annie continues, sighing as she shifts on the floor. “The note reads: thank you for being our friend. The world is a little brighter with you in it. You look like you’re always cold, so here’s a little something to keep your thoughts warm. Love, Bertholdt.”

“That’s fucking adorable,” Ymir comments. Everyone claps and cheers again.

“Thank you, Bertholdt,” Mikasa tells him as she takes the gift from Annie’s hands. Their fingers brush and she feels how calloused and tough her skin is, how gnarled. Her eyes drift quickly to the blonde, linger, stay, then flit away.

Sasha goes next. “This one is from Reiner. It’s gloves, obviously, as you can see. Wait, are we supposed to say what the present is? Oh, whatever. Anyway, the card reads: Dear Mikasa, your hands are the softest things I’ve ever touched.”

Eren snorts. “Smooth, dude.”

Reiner shrugs. “Well, it’s true!”

Mikasa smiles widely. “Anything else?”

“Nope!” Sasha squeaks, handing her the present. “That’s it.”

Mikasa thanks Reiner nobly with a bow of her head, and for a second she swears she sees him blushing.

“These are socks from Annie.” Hitch announces monotonically.  “Size small.” She hurls the bundle of cotton over at Mikasa. “No note.”

“Thanks, Annie,” she says, catching it. Annie only blinks at her. They stare at one another, and something seems to churn on their tongues, words they need spoken. But their gazes are split in half with Reiner’s sudden roar.

“My turn!”

All eyes land on him.

He whistles, shaking the box in his hands. It makes a _fwump_ kind of noise from inside. “Sounds like clothes. Underwear, maybe?”

“You wish,” Hitch scoffs. Everyone laughs except Mikasa. Despite herself, she buries her face behind her wrists, hiding her flush of embarrassment.

“I hope you like this top, Mikasa,” he reads. “I figured out your size from all the clothes I’ve let you borrow. I love you, bitch. Also, I want my dress back. You know which one. Kisses, Hitch.”

“Sorry,” Mikasa giggles. Hitch only shakes her head, the ghost of a smile adorning her mouth.

Thanks are said. Gifts are passed to her. By the time, someone decides to take another sip of beer, Mikasa’s lap is overflowing with presents.

Bert goes next. He holds a pair of jeans in his hands. From Sasha. Her note is two pages long and everyone groans when he holds it up to read it, but Mikasa assures that she can keep it for herself and read later on at home, giving Sasha a peck on the cheek and a quiet, “Thank you.”

“Love ya, birthday girl,” the brunette smiles.

Mikasa wants to cry again.

Finally, the last present comes from Ymir and Historia. The girls hold up a pair of white figure skates, and the entire apartment swells with a wave of gasps. They sound feigned, almost.

“We can’t tell you what this is for,” Historia simpers as she hands them over to Mikasa. The skates are heavy in her hands. She’s too stunned to speak, so Historia continues. “But truly, Miks. We hope you enjoy them.”

“But why?” she asks dumbly, tears pricking the backs of her eyes. “Why this? It’s so much.”

Ymir only shakes her head. “Eren,” she says, and he doesn’t move. Doesn’t smile. There’s no dimple or shimmer. Just his eyes cast downward and a sudden:

“I didn’t get you anything, Mikasa.”

Everyone sits. Still. The room is silent.

“Oh,” she breathes. Not necessarily disappointed. But more… shocked at how he’d said it.

“Mine’s…” he sighs, finally removing Hitch’s glasses from his face. “Not here.”

Then where is it?

Her friends all smile at one another. Only Annie sits with the shadow of confusion darkening her visage.

“Let’s get you dressed, Mufasa,” Ymir says suddenly, her voice piercing the silence with her skittish laugh.

The cupcakes all remain untouched, lounging on the ground by their feet. Mikasa blinks rapidly before speaking.  “What? Why?”

And all there is, is the way everyone groans as they haul themselves to their feet. And how Sasha curls her hands through Mikasa’s, beaming happily. And how Historia helps carry all the presents to Sasha’s room where they lead her and sit her down on the bed and Sasha starts to take off her dress and closes the door behind her and _locks_ it and grins and says, “You’ll see.”

And Mikasa can only think of Jean. Think of him as her clothes falls off her body and the presents invade her skin. Think of him as she dresses in the jeans and striped top and hat and gloves everyone gave her. Think of him and realize that all their presents culminate to Eren’s, and her heart hiccups at the thought of him waiting for her outside. Think of him and see that she doesn’t miss him right now. Not really. Not at all.

**—o—**

Historia is, to put it lightly, filthy fucking rich.

Not only does her father own a theatre, but a stadium too. A damn stadium. Yeah. And that goes without mentioning the fact that she’s a successful ballerina that goes by the stage name of Christa Lenz and tours and performs regularly. Mikasa had never realized just how wealthy her small friend is, always viewing her humbleness as a virtue of, well, leading a humble life. But she understands now that this is not the case. However amiable and amicable Historia may be, she’s practically royalty among all of them. A speckle of fire in an army of coals.

They traipse through the night to their destination, talking calmly among themselves. Mikasa’s heels pound against the ground, her skates wobbling in her hands, the red scarf around her neck heavy with the added weight of Connie’s rose brooch. From head to toe, she is redesigned, molded into this creature of the night. She peers up at the sky and there are no stars, only passing planes and light pollution. She’s carried back by Bertholdt’s sudden announcement.

“We’re here.”

Here. At Historia’s family-owned friggin’ stadium.

“What in the world are we doing?” Mikasa questions, breathing her words as if they’d get in trouble should anyone outside of them hear. But the streets are mostly vacant and the night stands still, eerie almost. Eren doesn’t say anything as they unlock a back door open, and it’s almost New Year’s all over again, except that this time, once inside, the building isn’t empty. There’s late night workers and janitors strolling by, all whispering their hellos to Historia and Ymir. The boss’s daughter and her girlfriend. Their shy, ruddy-cheeked friends.

“Follow me,” Eren turns to tell her, and then everyone scrams.

“Where are they going?” Mikasa queries futilely, for an answer is not given. Instead, Eren motions for her to stay close, and they cross ticket booths and large rooms and long halls, until they stand in front of two large doors that seemingly reach all the way up to the ceiling. Then he turns around to look at her and whispers:

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

The doors swing open, slowly, to reveal a kingdom of ice inside. Mikasa is too appalled to gasp or comment, her mouth hanging useless, slack. “Oh my,” she begins, only to falter. Eren’s smile is big.

He says, “This is my present.”

He says, “Put on your skates.”

He says, “It’s time you dance again.”

“Dance?” Mikasa laughs, promptly removing her heels, pulling her socks high up her ankles before stuffing her feet into the skates. “Where is everybody?” she whispers, still too shocked to utter coherent sentences. Eren surprises her by tying her laces, and she steadies herself with her hands at his shoulders, her eyes trained to the top of his head.

Her heart beats so fast and so hard it makes her dizzy.

She closes her eyes. Draws in a breath. Counts to ten. Calms herself.

By the time she’s breathing evenly again, Eren’s rising to his feet. He towers over her, and it occurs to her that if she were to snuggle up against his chest, the top of her head would fit perfectly under his chin. She giggles happily, gazing around. They’re in an empty ice rink, standing by the kiss and cry. Lights shine brightly above like neon suns, reflected in Eren’s eyes as they soften to murmur, “Happy birthday, Mikasa.” And before she can draw in a breath to reply, everything goes dark.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

The lights switch off one by one with mighty echoes, thudding against the vastness of this place. Amazed, Mikasa peers at her surroundings, when just as suddenly she hears Reiner’s voice announcing through a microphone “Ladies and germs,” which makes her jump, startled.

“I present to you,” he echoes loudly, laughing. Mikasa looks around but she can’t find him, only feel his voice rattling the makeup of her bones. “The one and only, the incredible, beautiful, sweet-smelling—”

Eren scoffs, tying his own skates. “God.”

“—Mikasa Ackerman!”

She freezes, unsure of what to do, when suddenly she hears Sasha, Hitch, Historia, and Ymir cheering by the bleachers.

“Whoo!” they scream, whistle, clap. “Go Miki!”

“Miki,” she breathes, tears prickling her eyes. This is all so overwhelming. So perfect. So right. She closes her eyes and breathes in the smell of this place, the grandness of it, the cool scent of the ice. And then she’s floating, floating, floating above it all. Lost in a dream. Entranced by an illusion. When suddenly she feels Eren’s gloved hand reaching for her own, and her fingers look so small compared to his, her palm lost amid the largeness of him.

“Do you trust me?” he says, curls of his hair caressing the skin around his eyes.

“Yes,” she breathes, her chest rising. “I trust you.”

And as he pulls her to the rink, music fizzles from the microphone, seeping through her skin to the vessels of her veins. It courses through her the second their skates cut into the ice, a melodic piano pieces she cannot recognize. And Eren doesn’t let go. He never lets go of her. Their hands are sewn together, two ends of the same piece.

Slowly, they begin to move, carve cursive runes onto the ice, drawing out the tales of their bodies, the tangling of two souls. And Mikasa forgets that there are people watching, that her friends all gaze at her with excitement lighting their eyes. For it is only them—him, her, that occupy the molecules of the cold air, as they sway softly on the thinly lit rink, swirls of dancing colors reeling by their feet.

“You okay?” Eren squeezes her hand, and Mikasa gasps a little laugh, her breath high up in her lungs.

“You,” she tells him, “are incredible.”

“What can I say?” he smiles, all dimples and crinkly eyes. “I wanted your birthday to be special.”

“This is beyond special,” she says, her voice lost in the music. She closes her eyes and Eren turns deftly on his skates to hold both her hands, and it is then that she misses a step and tumbles into him.

“Whoa,” he catches her with a soft grunt. And she loses herself to the dream, safe in the warm cocoon of his arms. She can’t block out the scent of him, this being so close. This nearness. This _everywhere._

Her skin tingles and she looks up, observing the way he watches her. She can hear small giggles piercing the air around them, coming from the bleachers, but they fade to the back of her mind. She smiles and realizes that there’s fire behind her eyelids, burning every time she blinks.

She hasn’t cried this much, felt this much, in years.

It’s like coming alive again, this form of rebirth, this unlacing of self in Eren’s arms. He wipes away a stray tear on her cheek, whispering. “Don’t cry.”

His breath on her face, she hiccups, “I’m sorry.”

He only shakes his head.

Moments whoosh on by like the wind against her body, and when Eren lets go of her, lets her soar, she takes flight with her hair flowing behind her, long tresses that spin as her body twists and curls, and a familiar surge of electricity ignites her. It spurs her limbs to move, move, move. Gliding on the ice she closes her eyes and dances, laughs when the music swells and she lands a sloppy twirl, lets the coolness around her thaw on the heat of her cheeks.

She doesn’t see that Eren has left the ice rink.

When her eyes slide open again, they land on him. She skates to him, his body augmenting until it’s all she sees. And then she holds onto the railing, panting, cold sweat trickling down her neck.

“Mikasa,” he says simply, his voice a low drum in her ears. “You need to dance again.”

And she laughs.

She skates away and tosses her arms out to the sides and lets the wind lap at her entire body. “Maybe I will,” she says to herself, the music thrumming in her eyelids. She sighs, lands, says it a little louder.

“Maybe I will!”

And Eren’s smile is so bright, it fills the sun with envy.

“Good.”

**—o—**

Open the letter, the voices in his head breathe.

He hugs Mikasa goodbye, grinning at the little tears that form by the corners of her eyes. Stop crying, he tells her.

Open the letter, she breathes.

He walks home with his friends, all joking and laughing, giving him punches and congratulations on what just occurred. Did you see her, they all smile. Did you see Mikasa dance?

Open the letter, they breathe.

The night thaws with the slow light of the rising sun, reflected in his eyes as he gazes outside his window. It dawns in the sky, bathes the city in a soft shade of yellow.

Open the letter, it breathes.

He closes his restless eyes and walks to his kitchen, glimpses of the previous night glowing in his memory. Mikasa skating. Mikasa crying. Mikasa fitting perfectly in his hands. How she melted into his fingers, pulled by his strings.

Open the letter, everything around him breathes.

He sighs, reaching for the neat fold of paper, a knife in one hand, a tumultuous quake in the other. He’s shaking. And he laughs at that. He laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs and—

Opens the letter.

….

Mikasa only sleeps three hours. Three hours filled with memories of spinning lights, of striped long sleeve shirts and black velvet cupcakes and beer and ice skates that slice the floor. She awakens to warm lips murmuring at the shell of her ear.

“‘Kasa,” they tickle. “‘Kaaaaaaasa,” and she smiles groggily, rolls onto her back, cracks open an eyelid.

“Jean?”

“Mhm.”

“What is it?”

“What do you think?”

Pools of ink slide open. She stares at him, smiles, groans as she stretches on the bed, her body writhing with every crack and pop of her sleepy joints.  His hair is neatly brushed back and his breath smells of peppermint. She blinks at him, rubbing the vestiges of sleep from her eyes.

“How long have you been up?”

Her fiance’s eyes lull with a roll that sends them reeling in their sockets. “Not important.”

“Is Jiji okay?”

“Mr. Pringles is fine.”

“Then what is it?”

Jean laughs, his nose crinkling. Mikasa can’t help it when she leans in to kiss it, humming to herself, pleased.

“Well,” he begins, snaking his hands around her under the covers. His touch is warm and strong and Mikasa allows herself to melt, melt, melt into his arms until she’s pressed flush against him, held up by the shelter of his bones. His voice in her ear tickles, the gentle gusts of his breath prickling the hairs of her cheek. “It’s somebody’s birthday today.”

Mikasa laces her fingers through his, tries to fight her smile. “Is it really?”

“Yup.”

“Whose?”

He kisses her ear. “Guess.”

“Hmmm,” Mikasa feigns a pensive expression, turning to look at him. She swipes his hair away from his eyes with her fingers, relishing in how handsome he looks, his face carved into a gentle expression, eyes full of love. Full of love for her.

“It’s not yours,” she whispers quietly, booping the tip of his nose with her own.

Jean’s grin is dazzling. “Nope.”

“Or Jiji’s.”

“Nope.”

“So… I’d say, since we have no other friends…” She turns her body under the covers to face him completely now, kissing him softly on the lips. He reciprocates, which makes her smile, whisper, “Mine?”

“Bingo.”

Her eyes shrink with her grin, but before she can say anything else, Jean has her pinned to the bed. His body is heavy on top of hers, the palms of his hands calloused and warm, eliciting tiny sighs, pulling diaphanous utterances of his name from her mouth. He tells her he has a birthday present for her—many birthday presents, he corrects—but before he can rise from the bed and leave her, she locks her legs around his waist and asks him to stay. Just this once. Stay. Stay with her.

“Jean,” she breathes, sneaking her hands under his shirt, fingers seeking the warmth of his lower belly. “Please.”

“You okay?”

“Yes, just— Please.”

This time, he doesn’t escape her. He complies. And she’s surprised when his hands promptly rush to find the skin under her nightgown, pulling down on the straps to kiss the peaks of her breasts. Fleetingly, she wonders when was the last time they ever even came close to doing this, and with a wilting groan she realizes that she can’t remember. It’s been so long. Too long. All she wants today is to be selfish, to seek purchase of his skin, to have him, remember why they’re here. Like this. Engaged. To be married. Sharing each other for the rest of their lives. She blinks up at the ceiling as his lips venture lower, and at every blink she captures ghostly flickers of the previous nights, nights filled with Eren. His smile. His voice. His eyes. His boyish dimple and unruly hair. She’s aghast at the thoughts in her head, as if Jean could peek into the privacy of her mind, and fights against them by seeking him more, by pulling him up to her and kissing him with passion, fire she hopes will burn all thoughts of Eren away.

She’s been spending too much time with him, she reasons.

That is why she thinks of him so much, she tells herself.

And before she can utter her consent, Jean pulls her back to him by pushing into her. She cries out. It hurts. She’s taut and tender and bites her lip and whimpers. Dust particles dance and glimmer in the morning light, shining in his eyes as they teem with worry. But before he can ask if she’s alright, she pushes him over onto his back so that she’s topping. His eyes flash with a tendril of surprise that she’s quick to shush with a roll of her hips that cajoles his own to meet her. In every rise and fall he’s there. He grips her hips and thrusts and moans and he’s there. He’s there with her. She feels him. She wants him. Only him. Only him. She reminds herself, only him.

They make love, and as she comes, her eyes tightly shut so that she can’t see, only feel, a burst of green, blue, gold, explodes behind her eyelids. She gasps, shudders, and she can feel Jean’s pants at her throat but what she registers is something else entirely. She feels hands that aren’t his draped around her waist, a fervid heartbeat that doesn’t belong to him. Her fingertips graze the dewy sweat of his chest and the thumping they absorb is neither his nor hers. Slowly, she parts her lids open, and in a whooshing vortex, she’s pulled back. Back to the first time she ever did this, the pain that slowly subsided into pleasure, the tiny whispers of _is this okay?_ and _tell me if I’m hurting you_ and _I love you._ How the words echoed off through the night, beating, I love you, I love you, I love you.

But nothing is said now. Nothing is said.

I love you. It pounds against the walls in her head. I love you. And when Jean pulls her in for a final kiss, smiling softly, what she tastes is another man. I love you. And it’s all lewd, all so shameful. I love you. But what she aches for lies solely in her past, a wisp of breath that held, I love you. And as her fiance splits the silence that follows their labored breaths with a peck to her throat and three words, what she hears is Eren’s voice uttering the noises that leave him, noises that morph into shapes she’d heard countless times years before.

I love you.

**—o—**

He blows a plume of smoke from his mouth, using the same flame he’d lit his cigarette with to burn the edges of the letter in his hands. The words glow as they disappear. Dying.

_Thank you for completing the blood tests and screenings we requested._

Eren watches them dwindle, small lights that gleam and scream.

_We have tested all samples we received from St. Maria Hospital on 124 Main St._

As the crackling breaths swallow the crumpled paper, he pictures himself.

_and are very sorry to inform that the patient,_

Fading, fading.

_Eren Jaeger, twenty-five years of age,_

Until he releases it  and it vanishes to thin air with a fuming burst.

_has been found positive of the following:_

So pretty.

_Chronic_

Going.

_Myeloid_

Going.

_Leukemia_

Gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support, fanarts, fanmixes, and messages on tumblr! Your faith in me and this story is what keeps it going, and all I can say now is: I hate myself, and *whispers* just trust me.


	24. A Boy's Persistent Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy to be writing Armin chapters. He is so valid. Also, I think I forgot to mention that I changed my tumblr url to sayaanara. So if you wish to contact me there, just look me up under the new name! Having that said, this chapter had no beta so forgive any mistakes. Thanks so much for reading, and enjoy.

The doctors said Eren was sick. His brain was sick, so he needed new medication to fix it. 

He learned the difference between SSRI and SNRI pills, and which ones he needed to be on. Apparently, bipolar disorder and manic depression were new titles to add to the already-lengthy list of things that was wrong with him. And with these new conditions came new treatment, medicine he vowed not to take.

“I don’t care if they put me on fifty different meds,” he told his father one morning over a half-eaten bowl of Lucky Charms. “I’m not popping a single pill.”

Grisha Jaeger was expressionless. His eyes bore deeply into him through the lenses of his glasses, nothing more than a sigh leaving his mouth.

“Eren,” he began, but was promptly interrupted.

“Meds didn’t save Mom, and look at what they’re doing to Armin.”

Suddenly, his father’s face fell. He said nothing, only stared helplessly at his wayward son, the morning light filtering in from the uncurtained windows, gleaming in his sad, large eyes. It struck him how much Eren’s stubbornness resembled that of his mother’s, and he realized with a pang in his chest that he missed her in ways his heart had not yet learned how to miss. 

“Medication is important, Eren. You can’t deny help when you need it.”

But his son only shook his head and said, “I don’t need help.” And he was wrong, so wrong, but his father was too tired—too sad—to argue. 

**—o—**

 

“Can you hear that?”

“Hear what, Ar?”

“The leaves,” Armin whispered, tossing his head back in the wind, his hair blowing across his face, swimming trunks pressed against his gaunt legs. They sat lounging under the sun, the warm water of the lake they liked to frequent drying droplets on their skins. Armin’s hair was a blond, damp mop. Running a hand through the soaked tresses, he added, “I love leaves.”

Eren’s face furrowed curiously. “You can hear them?”

“No,” was his friend’s reply. “But I can feel them.”

Feel them, Eren thought, for his friend had lost almost all of his hearing now. He lived life as a crippled teenager, his illness a branding stamp that declared him disabled. Different. Like Eren. But where he bore ailments in the heart, Armin carried them in his body, for his soul was pure. Unsullied. A clean stretch of unmarred snow.

Eren, the sun, melted everything he touched, so that when his palm pressed flat against the center of Armin’s chest, the heaving breaths that swayed within it stilled. Waited.

“Can you feel this?” he asked him, to which he was met with puzzlement.

“My heart?”

“Yes.”

Armin’s smile was coy. “I feel it. I hear it. All through my body, it’s there.”

The sigh that left Eren slid out through his nostrils, sagging his bare chest. “Good.”

Blue eyes scoured him, then Mikasa. She sat quietly beside them, with all the benevolence in her softening her eyes. Armin’s lips parted to say something, but only the warm fog of his breath came out.

“I’m going for a swim,” he declared suddenly, rising to his feet. And then he pottered away as Eren called behind him.

“Be careful!”

He was gone. His body was absorbed by the lake, the pale white of his skin inundated by the deep blue of the water. Eren watched quietly with his knees to his chest, frowning at some distant point in space.

“I’m so worried about Armin. He’s not eating,” said Mikasa, her voice clashing with the silence within him. Eren could only sigh, close his eyes and open them again to gaze at her with renewed intent.

“He’s sick, Miki,” he stated simply, pulling a cirrus of hair away from her face. Her cheeks were ruddy under the heat of the summer sun, the points and crooks of her joints glowing crimson. 

“How is he looking to you?” she asked him. Eren could only shrug.

“Deaf.” 

She smacked him lightly on the chest. 

“What? It’s true.”

Silence. Mikasa was the one frowning now, her thin brows pushed close together. What worries  rattled in her head, Eren could not guess. So he leaned in to kiss the pointy tip of her nose, breathing, “What is it?”

Her answer came quick. “I am afraid.”

He knew immediately what she was talking about. Armin. 

Armin, Armin, Armin. 

Oh, how horribly he wanted to take all his pain away, to swipe his hand and cleanse him like some sort of messiah—like in the book he liked to read so much. It sat idly by their feet, ear-dogged midway to his third or fourth read. Why Armin adored it so much, Eren could not know. It was one of the mysteries that came with being friends with someone so bright, so brilliant. His obsessions breathed life into him, brightened the colorful shades of his eyes. And Eren could only admire this, admire and be thankful that even in the throes of pain, human survival prevails, fights. Clings to things that make it happy.

“Me too,” Eren sighed, turning his head to face her. She stared intently at the flurry of activity in the water, at Armin’s every splash and cry. So he held one side of her face, cajoling her eyes to acknowledge him. And once they did, he whispered, “We have to protect him, Mikasa. Always.”

“I will. I promise.” She nodded, closing her eyes, melting into his touch. Her cheek in his hand was clammy. Soft. “As long as I’m with you, I can do anything.”

Eren grinned. “Can you do this?”

His lips on hers were light, tender. Barely pressing against the plush of her mouth, he could still taste her, taste the hum in her throat and the slight curves of her tiny smile.

“Yes,” she peeped, placing a hand on his chest, his skin sweltering at the contact. Under the sun, she seemed brighter, redder, and smelled even sweeter in the heat. He inhaled her scent, buried his face in the crook of her neck, nuzzled her skin and felt her shiver.

“How about this?”

“Eren.”

“What?”

“Armin.”

He laughed. Kissed her there. “He’s not looking.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Armin,” came her voice, teeming with something foreign. “Where is he?”

At that, Eren jerked his head back so fast the bones of his neck cracked. Alas, he dug his eyes through the lake and found nothing. No Armin. No activity. Nothing. Just the stillness of calm waters before a raging storm.

**—o—**

 

The lake was so healing.

As he sank lower and lower, Armin closed his eyes.

Enveloped in the cool kiss of the omnipresent water, he could feel himself drifting further along to the bottom, where unknown mysteries awaited. Here, he wasn’t ill, wasn’t cancer, wasn’t deaf. He was just this undefined being, governed by the buoyancy of its shell. Sinking. Sinking. Unfurling like a veil.

In the darkness behind his eyelids, images of his life flickered past, candles that burned with breaths that whispered. He saw Mom. Dad. Grandpa. And then Eren, Mikasa, Carla, anyone he had ever loved. And he asked them, asked them why, why did they love him so? When he was damaged goods? A walking pariah? He was not normal, not worthy of normal things like girlfriends and friends and laughter and music. When God made him broken, when He made him weak and skinny and deaf, He created him so as a reminder that not all things were made equal, not all creatures were born to experience the fullness of life.

As he thought of this, a bleeding crevice in him oozed empty, a gaping chasm that pulsed and grew. He realized with a start that he was no longer breathing, that the oxygen in his lungs wailed, clawed for air that had escaped him. So he opened his mouth. Breathed. It was then that he accepted he was drowning.

It’s okay, he told himself. It’s okay. He was already dead anyway.

So he closed his eyes and let the water heal him, let it regain his hearing and quiet his pulse, so that as it seeped into his lungs, he felt the burn and he felt grateful, for the pain of life escaped him, replaced by this soothing inhale, the exhale that never came.

And just when he thought he could see light, see it all end, see a new beginning, he felt strong arms yanking him upward, felt his body break the surface and the healing end.

**—o—**

 

“Armin?”

Mikasa was sobbing.

“Armin!”

Eren, drenched, was weeping out of the pores of his skin.

“Are you okay?!”

And it occurred to him that he was still here, still breathing, still sick. He coughed. Gasped. Groaned when tan arms enveloped and squeezed him, when his friends’ voices slid into the clogged canals of his ears.

He felt Eren’s throat vibrating with words.

He was thanking God. Thanking everything.

When he pulled away, when his face was mere inches from his, he saw that Eren’s eyes were red, the water dripping off his skin in rivulets, his hair a plastered mess on his forehead.

Are you okay, he felt him ask him. Armin. Armin. Are you okay?

Can you hear me?

Please, answer me.

Please!

Mikasa, gasping, garnered his shivering frame in her arms, pressed him so close to her he could feel her heartbeat. It was frenzied. A wild, thrashing animal. And Armin could only stare straight ahead at the heavens, wonder why God thought it a good idea to keep him here longer, when all he did was bring chaos to his loved ones, a useless burden to his friends.

He held them.

And Mikasa and Eren wept, their nails digging crescents into his flesh from how hard they gripped him. 

Don’t ever scare us like that again, he felt Mikasa say. Don’t you ever, ever do this to us again, Armin.

And when he ripped himself from their grasp, when he stared at both their gleaming faces and felt a smile dawning on his lips, Eren was the one to speak, the one to ask: 

How are you?

Reading his lips, Armin nodded, grabbed his hand, pressed his palm against the flat center of his chest and answered through his heartbeat.

“Still alive.”

**—o—**

 

Eren Jaeger was no hero. 

But he tried, for he felt that the world wanted to design him so. Because when Dad drank away his heart and drowned his thoughts with Grey Goose vodka, his son was the one to lug his heavy stench through their home to his old bedroom, where he watched his father crumble onto the small bed with a groan, with a whisper.

“Carla, Carla,” reverberated the alcohol in his breath.

His hands reaching for a phantom that was not there, a ghost Eren carried on his features. And he wasn’t a hero, no, and still he undressed and bathed his father, wondered how such a man, such a dire presence, could dwindle into this. And, replacing his father’s glasses over his eyes, crouching so that he shadowed the lenses, his visage, Eren asked that if he took all his meds, would Daddy promise to stay sober?

His father was many things, but he was not a liar. He hadn’t replied, instead just clasped the fabric of his son’s shirt and wept into his shoulder. I miss her, he’d said. I miss her. As if he was the only one.

Eren was no hero, but he’d learned how to fly.

For fighting became futile when Fucking Samuel and Sarah Hale spewed slurs about Mikasa under their breaths. Chink. Gook. Yellow. And he’d had to learn to soar above them, for it only pained her when he retaliated, when he was suspended from soccer for yet another season for breaking yet another nose and had to beg his way back into the team and his father had to pay for some other kid’s hospital bills.

“Carla, Carla,” he could hear him whining in his sleep. It seemed he wasn’t the only one with nightmares.

Eren was no hero, but he’d learned how to save lives.

Mikasa’s, Armin’s, his Dad’s. And he wondered why now, why he’d been forged into this now and not years ago when Mom was ill and her skin was bruised and her bones always hurt and he could’ve saved her. Somehow. Just somehow. Reversed her pain and absorbed it into himself. And then it occurred to him that perhaps this was his opportunity now with Armin, this was his second chance. But how? How would he do it? How could he save anyone when he hardly knew how to save himself?

“Carla, Carla,” Mikasa whispered once. 

When Eren had asked who she missed most and they’d kissed under the moonlight, and his lips had found her skin and elicited a tremor that quaked the planes of her entire body, and they’d danced to the whimsical beats of their hearts, falling asleep in each other’s arms only to wake with the sun tickling the clouds and caressing the blades of grass that clung to their skins and hair.

Armin buried himself in his books, burrowed into the pages, etched every word onto himself like tattoos he memorized to survive, clinging to their message like he’d forget if he didn’t hold on tight enough, desperately enough. He read the same books over and over, and for a moment Eren thought he had memory loss, but then he sat down with his friend and gazed at the stars above them and heard him recite an entire chapter from his mind, and he thought of how sometimes obsessions are what keep us alive, what spur our bodies to keep going.

He had so many question only Mom could answer. Like, what should I do? How can I help Armin? How can I make Mikasa happy? How can I save Dad? Why did you leave so soon? Don’t you see the world is a bleak place without your smile? Without that glint in your eyes? Don’t you know I miss you with every bite of food, every breath, every step I take?

Eren was no hero, for he yearned in his humanity, ached.

“Carla, Carla.”

**—o—**

 

The days hobbled on, and Mikasa grew nervous.

She’d made the mistake of going to her ballerina friends for dating advice, for Eren and her had been together for nearly a year now and the only thing they ever did aside from the usual pecks on the lips was hold hands and stare longingly at one another. And at confessing that, came a boisterous shout, a bewildered, “What!?!?”

“Have you _ seen  _ him?” her friend exclaimed, slapping a hand on her chest. She pulled her leotard over her body, slid her arms through the sleeves, adjusted her breasts so they pushed upward within the fabric. “How have you been able to keep a man like that without doing anything?”

Mikasa stammered. First of all, _ man _ ? Eren was only sixteen! And  _ keep _ him? She hadn’t known that she had to fight to maintain him in her possession. She was clueless when it came to these things. Full of naivete, she absorbed every word that came out of her friend, her eyes growing large when she leaned in to whisper in her ear and spew her secret.

She gasped.

“That’s how you lure, catch him, and snatch,” her friend grinned, and Mikasa opened her mouth to protest, when suddenly she added, “Your boyfriend is very good looking, Mika. If you don’t do something to keep him, someone else will.”

And she thought immediately of her parents. Of their divorce, what caused it. And she thought of Armin, how he’s slipping through her fingers, fading. And she thought of Eren, of his hair, his hands, his back, the lines around his eyes that crinkled when he smiled. And with a trickle of something electric in her belly she sucked in a large chunk of air and declared:

“I won’t lose him.”

**—o—**

 

Armin was throwing up everything he ate, groaning over the toilet bowl, spitting out the vile taste in his mouth. 

His body was slumped forward like an old rag, limp and useless under Eren’s consoling strokes of his hand. He kept apologizing, crying, apologizing. I’m sorry, guys. I’m sorry. And Mikasa could only sigh and pretend she didn’t see that it was blood he puked up this time, that when she ran her fingers through his hair, golden strands fell out in clumps.

I can’t lose him, she thought to herself, her eyes glued to his shivering back before darting over to Eren.

_ I won’t lose him. _

Minutes passed before Armin stopped retching, and then Eren asked no questions, demanded no answers, simply curled his arms through the crook of his friend’s knees and back and carried him like a baby to his bedroom, smoothing his sweaty hair from his face when he sank into the pillow, petting the top of his heavy head. 

“Everything will be okay,” he whispered, knowing he wouldn’t hear. 

Mikasa kissed Armin’s forehead, pulled the blankets over his body and told him to rest. Groggily, weak, he nodded, his bright blue eyes dimming behind the droopy curtains of his eyelids. 

Eren sighed.

They walked over to the living room, where Armin’s grandpa sat in his wheelchair and thanked them nobly for their help.

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” was all Eren could say, Mikasa nodding beside him. She gazed down and realized that his hands were balled into fists, the veins near his knuckles flexing. He was angry. Mad at his best friend’s state. Mad that his own grandfather was old and crippled and could hardly care for him. Mad that bad things had to happen to good people.

“Thank you, son,” Grandpa Arlert said, gratitude glinting in his small eyes. He held eons of wisdom within them, the benevolence of a soul that had transgressed through decades of emotion. Eren seemed to reflect his gaze, a small smile slanting his lips as he held the old man in his arms and grunted when his embrace was returned with great fervor.

Mikasa giggled.

“Miki,” Grandpa Arlert smiled, wrinkles denting the skin around his eyes. “Come here.”

She hugged him, gasping when he squeezed her with surprising force. Everyone laughed, a shout of audacity in the grim atmosphere of this home, and then they promised to return, Eren waving goodbye to his only father figure, to his best friend's caretaker, to the thin thread that held them all together despite its frayed ends.

The car ride home was silent. Carla’s old van jolted as it ran over a bump on the road. Silence. Eren frowned at the road ahead. Silence. Mikasa sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve, peered quietly at the boy beside her. Silence. He was wearing his glasses and it struck her how much he looked like his own father, despite being the exact replica of his mom; how his lips contained that familiar quirk that perked them up to one side so that he looked like he was always smirking, reflecting Grisha’s own permanent smile.

It was when they both sat on Eren’s bed that either of them spoke. 

Mikasa.

“Eren,” she whispered. He wouldn’t look at her. She placed a hand on his thigh, said, “You are amazing.”

He snorted, slumped forward, elbows at his knees. “Hardly.”

“I don’t know what Armin and I would be without you.”

“Better off?”

“Stop.”

“Ah,” he groaned, plopping onto his back on the mattress. The bed dipped where his body lay, the pointy tip of his adam’s apple throbbing when he swallowed. He threw an arm over his eyes, sighing. And then silence came. Silence and the steady rhythm of his breathing. And Mikasa bit her lips and thought of what her friend had told her, when suddenly she curled her body so that she eclipsed Eren’s, grazing at the shapes of his lips, lips she’d kissed countless times before, a mouth whose taste she had engraved in her, memorized. 

Feeling her clouding presence, Eren slid his arm off his face and opened his eyes. He said nothing. Stared. His eyes scouring the whole of her, the edges and points of her face, the svelte curves of her torso.

And he kissed her.

She closed her eyes, let his hands slip into her hair, her own find his face and chest and belly. She made him noisy. Made him loud. Grisha wasn’t home so she didn’t have to stifle her small whine when his tongue delved into her mouth and she bunched his shirt in her hands, tugging.

They spiraled on the bed, fueled by a hunger that had never touched them. It alarmed her when the ends of his hair grazed the curve of her neck, when his hands bunched up her skirt and slid it up her legs. It was all happening too fast, for he was experienced but she wasn’t, and she thought of breaking away when suddenly she remembered her friend’s taunting words.

_ If you don’t do something to keep him, someone else will. _

_ Someone else will. _

She screwed her eyes shut and told herself to bear with it. It’s not like they hadn’t made out before, anyway. But it was when the line of the unknown was crossed and she guided his hand beneath her shirt and anchored it atop her breast that he squeezed, and she gasped, and every atom in her body wanted to pull back, retreat, retreat.

_ Do you want to lose him? _ A voice in her queried.

No, she thought, dragging her nails down the rippled skin of his abs, tracing the thin thatch of hair that led south, pulling his glasses from his face to kiss his eyelids, his chin, his nose. 

No, no, no.

If this meant keeping him, then she was ready. She would do anything. Anything. So she bore through it and laced her fingers through his own, hand by her head as their kiss deepened and she thought of all the pain he must be going through with Armin, with Grisha, with everything. And she told herself that she could take his pain away, vanish it. So she sacrificed her decency and mewled into his mouth, taken aback at her own noise of pleasure when his hands slipped beneath her skirt to grope the flesh of her thighs. 

She bit her lip and hurried to wrestle her shirt off her body, exposing the bra she’d bought specifically for this occasion, her chest stuttering nervously, belly clenching with her every pant. Eren’s body was heavy on top of hers, suffocating, when suddenly she lifted her hips so that he’d see her panties, see that her underwear matched, that she meant for this to happen. I can’t lose him, she thought over and over and over again. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. And as his eyes ventured down between her legs, she felt a flush of embarrassment, an urge to snap her legs shut and coil away. But all she did was bite her lip and wait for his reaction. When he didn’t move, she was the one who pawed at his skin, who clawed at him and pulled him close, held him closer.

Erase. Erase. Erase all the pain away.

Eren hesitated, frozen on top of her as she kissed her way down his neck, her hands fumbling with his clothes when they dribbled down to his jeans and he stopped them.

“Wait,” he breathed, gripping her hands. “Wait.”

Mikasa balked.

“Miki,” he panted, wrenching her off of him. “What’s this?”

She split her mouth open only to let it hang ajar.

“What’s this?” he repeated. 

Mikasa sputtered helplessly. “I thought we could do this now.”

Eren frowned. “Now?”

She felt a surge of shame sting her chest, throttling her lungs, barely breathing, “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well—”

“Why so suddenly? Mikasa, this isn’t like you.”

She pursed her lips together, crossed her arms over her chest, looked away.

Eren sighed above her. She could still smell him. Still feel him. And the remnants of his touch on her body felt invasive. Tainted. Wrong. 

She closed her eyes.

“I’m worried about us.”

“Why?”

“I thought maybe…”

“What?”

“Maybe… If we…”

“Are you saying you thought having sex would cheer me up?”

“Well, when you put it like that—”

“Mikasa!”

“What?”

Eren groaned, running his hands down his face, sitting on the bed beside her. His hair was a mess, clothes wrinkled from her roving hands. Mikasa bit her lip and sat up beside him, cringing at his expression when she placed a hand on his back and he flinched away.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked him.

All he did was nod.

Mikasa panicked, her hand frozen between them, midway to reaching out to him, before mocing to retrieve her shirt and slip it over her body. She thought to rise off the bed, leave, render their relationship over—it was all her fault, all her fault—but then he suddenly grabbed her hands and brought them to his chest, saying, “Miki.”

She blinked. “Yes?”

“Don’t ever do this again.”

She wilted, ashamed. “Yes.”

“I love you,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes, leaning in so close she could see the areas of his face that she’d kissed gleam with moisture, “but above that, I respect you.”

She wanted to cry. He kissed her palms, held them to his chest. “Promise me we’ll only do it when you’re ready.”

She nodded once. Whispered, “I promise.”

And he sighed, relieved, leaning in to kiss her cheek, lingering there, his fingers tracing the hem of her skirt, the cups of her bra, the lines of her face, when suddenly his phone rang, vibrating on the bed, blipping with copious text messages that ran along one after the other without a moment's breath. They were needed. An emergency. 

Armin.

**—o—**

 

Everyone has their own way of coping with pain. Eren wasn’t sure what his method was yet.

For when Grandpa Arlert sat with them in the hospital’s waiting room, staring down at the arms of his wheelchair, his voice ratcheted down to an inaudible slur, he closed his eyes and said, “Armin has cancer.”

And Eren’s heart did this thing where it lifted from his chest and slowly, slowly, crawled its way to the very bottom of his body, leaving him pulseless and cold.  He gazed beside him to gauge Mikasa’s reaction, but her features were hardened, stiff, emotionless. This was her method of coping. Of surviring. 

Eren didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, to chuckle at the irony of having yet another loved one succumbed to the throes of cancer or sob at the fact. A lump in his throat grew and stifled any words that meant to pass through, so that all that left him was a raspy, “What?”

Gramps told them everything. How it all began when he was small. How he kept it from everyone so as to not burden them. And Eren’s blood boiled, his angry fists clenched tight, for how could Armin ever think so? How could he ever doubt his loyalty like this? His love?

“We need to see him,” was all he could say. And he saw his mother’s face. Her rattly bones. Her tender skin. The disease that ate away at her until she was nothing but a limp, sick body on a vast white bed. And then he pictured Armin, and his heart rose back to his chest, fluttered with an uncouth surge of hope that cajoled him to whisper, “He’ll be okay.”

Mikasa looked at him. Her eyes were soft but surprised.

“He’ll be okay,” Eren repeated with renewed confidence, for he felt it in his being. “This won’t kill him.”

“He has had cancer for a long time,” was all Grandpa Arlert could say, his stubbly cheeks sagged and lined with wrinkles, lines Eren traced intently with his eyes.

“Gramps,” he whispered. “Do you know what killed Mom?”

The old man’s eyes drooped sadly. “Leukemia.”

“No.” Eren shook his head. “Wrong,” he rapped, squeezing Mikasa’s hand when her fingers coiled around his palm tightly. “She had no hope.” 

Grandpa Arlert stared at him. Said nothing.

“She accepted her fate long before it came,” Eren continued, his hair all in his eyes. He looked so young. Just a boy. “That’s what killed her.”

“Eren,” Mikasa started, but he paid her no heed.

“Can we please see him?” he asked Gramps, moving closer so that he could catch the foggy veil that shadowed the old man’s eyes, the eternal patience that now wavered. “Please.”

He seemed to think. The white room they occupied smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee, bustled with soft bleeping noises and murmurs that left the nurses’ mouths. 

Mikasa stood beside Eren, held his hand with both her own, gave him a reassuring nod when he turned to look at her.

Please, every fiber of their beings whispered. Please.

And it was then that Gramps shifted on his wheelchair and told them, “Wait here.”

They watched wordlessly as he rolled away.

**—o—**

 

Armin, their Armin, looked like a tiny twig amid the large white trunk of the bed he laid on. 

His eyes were closed. A thread of his hair curled and uncurled near his nostrils with every exhale. His eyelids were bruised and heavy, dotted with tiny bursted veins from the force he’d expelled vomiting. Apparently, he’d puked so much that he passed out, so Grandpa took him to the hospital. And Grandpa couldn’t bear his secret anymore. And Grandpa told them and Armin went from being sick to dying. And nobody knew how to process the collateral shift.

Eren sat quietly beside the bed, scooting over so that Mikasa could sit beside him. But she didn’t. Instead, she walked up to Armin and stared intently at his face, squinting as if she were trying to read something imperceptible. I wasn’t until he saw a droplet dribble off her chin that he realized she was crying. 

He rose from the chair and curved his arms around her waist, hugging her from behind, and rested his chin on her shoulder so he could look down at Armin. They both stared at him, and her soft sobs jolted against his chest, his heart, so he closed his eyes and prayed for them to end soon, held his girl as she stroked his best friend’s face and prayed, prayed, prayed.

Odd, how he did that. In the face of death even non-believers turn to God. 

“He looks so small,” she whispered. Eren kissed the skin behind her ear. She cried harder. “So tiny.”

“I know,” he said, his hands against her lower belly, feeling the sways of her breathing, dwelling in them. “I know.”

She reached out and stroked his hair, sniffling. As she did that, Eren thought to shake Armin awake, to clasp his shoulder and rattle him and ask him and beg him to please, please, just be that boy in love with books and the outside world again. Wake up. Wake up. Just wake up and talk about the stars, about  _ Illusions _ , about anything that would usually bore him but he needed so desperately now. 

It was then that blue eyes finally flickered open. Sleepily, the eyelids slid back, bearing two tired azure marbles that gleamed in the light with moisture.

Mikasa gasped.

“Armin,” she whispered, promptly hiding her tears. Eren let her go to stand beside her, peering down at their friend.

“Mikasa,” Armin croaked, opening and closing his eyes slowly. He licked the chapped curves of his lips, rasping apologies. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“No,” was all she said. “Please, don’t be.”

Eren waited as they whispered their exchange of words, his arms hoisted against his chest, eyes cast everywhere but at them.

“Eren.” was Armin’s sudden call, luring his eyes onto him. He looked tired and pale, writhing helplessly under the weight of his gaze. It was then that the words came out in a deluge of anger. Eren panted, scowled. 

“Why?” was all he could muster. “Why, Armin? Why didn’t you tell us?”

His best friend sighed, an exhale that sunk his bony chest. He went to move his hand, but all it did was pulse, barely registering movement. 

“I didn’t want to be a burden,” he said sadly, the words barely leaving his mouth. “From the start, I’ve done nothing but hinder the two of you. I am a burden.”

Eren’s eyes burned bright with anger. “A burden?”

“I’m weak. You guys always have to take care of me. I can’t keep weighing you down.”

“Listen to me.” Eren pushed forward to come close to Armin, so close he could smell his hair, his skin, his sickness. Narrowing his eyes, he demanded, “Don’t you ever keep secrets from us again, got it?”

Mikasa tensed at his tone. She laid a hand on his back, whispered, “Eren.”

“Do you understand me?” he pushed harder, letting out an exasperated breath when Armin looked away.  “Do I have to speak louder?”

No,” he answered quietly, voice quivering. “I understand you.”

“I love you, Ar,” Eren scowled, tears burning like fire behind his eyelids. “Fuck, I love you. I’ll protect you my entire life if I have to, and not once would you be a burden to me. Not once.”

Mikasa nodded at that. “Ditto.”

Armin’s eyes were big and sad and lined with sleeplessness. “You guys…”

Eren interrupted him. When he spoke, he felt his mother. Felt her presence in his heart, and from this intimate place within him, he poured out, “Listen to me. I don’t care how long this cancer lasts, we’re gonna heal from it together. Do you understand? We will be here for you every goddamn step of the way whether you like it or not.”

“I understand.”

“Having an illness does not exclude you from the right to live a life.”

At this, Armin’s eyes grew wide. His gaze scoured the two of them. Eren. Mikasa. And it was then that he began to cry. He wept like a child, hiding his face inside his hands, his thin shoulders jolting with every hiccup. 

Eren’s voice was much softer when he spoke again. He gently tore Armin’s hands from his face so that he would look at him, read his lips.

“You have to live, Armin,” he whispered, tears welling up in his own eyes. “Even when you’re sick. Even when you’re depressed. Even when there’s no point. Live.”

Mikasa was crying too. They were a bunch of sniveling teenagers, with snot dripping off their noses and all of the hope in the world beating lively in their hearts. And they’d done this before for Eren when Carla passed, for Mikasa when her parents split, and now they willingly held Armin, two beings serving as the foundation of his strength, as the walls of his sanctuary.

“Promise us you won’t keep anything from us anymore,” Mikasa pleaded, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “Please, Armin.”

The boy closed his eyes and nodded, voice all sleepy and soft. “I promise.”

Eren straightened, jutting out his chest, perching his fists on his hips and threatening, “Cancer, get ready. We’re gonna kick your sorry ass.”

They laughed. Together. A symphony of lurching breaths and tears and snot.

And then Eren being Eren forgot that there were IV’s and a plethora of other things connected to Armin and he squeezed him tightly in an embrace, causing the smaller boy to gasp and cry out.

“Eren,” he groused. But there was no saving him.

Mikasa giggled quietly. That is, until Eren suddenly pulled back and added, “Can you believe Mikasa tried to sleep with me to cheer me up?”

“Eren!” she smacked his shoulder.

“What?” he grinned, towering over her, and it occurred to her that he’d grown too fast, undergone another massive growth spurt. She stared up at him through the cracks between her fingers and he said, “It’s kind of funny.”

She covered her face with her hands as he laughed. “Oh, my god.”

Armin was laughing too. “Eren, you can’t talk about your girl like that.”

“I mean, I would’ve gladly done it but—  _ mmrph! _ ”

Mikasa covered his mouth with her hand, cringing. “Enough!”

Armin giggled loudly, fluttering on the bed.

“I was following my friend’s advice!”

“What friend?”

“From ballet.”

“Ooh. Did she give you any more tips?”

“That’s it. I’m jumping off this building.”

“I’m joking!” Eren kissed her, his dimple denting his cheek playfully. “You know I’m joking.”

All she did was pout.

Armin stared happily at the two of them. And with a shiver in his heart he thought that perhaps it was okay, it was okay to feel, to have, to lose. That he need not drown or disappear, that being sick did not strip him of the right to live. That he could exist with all his flaws, all his problems, and still be worthy of love. Of Eren and Mikasa.

He did not know the future, but for once, it seemed bright.

They were being so loud. Shouting. Laughing. Running around. And Armin felt like they were kids again, just a bunch of nine year olds without a care in the world. With no illness. No divorces. No deaths. In that moment, he was invincible, for he garnered the strength of his friends. And what was cancer but something else to survive? To grow from? Perhaps it was audacious to think so, but life happened exactly the way it was meant to be. Cancer and everything.

“Dude,” Eren gasped suddenly, his eyes wide, set on Armin. “I got diagnosed with more shit. They think I’m bipolar.”

“Do you think you are?” he asked his friend, smiling fondly.

“Nahh,” Eren smirked, scratching his neck. “I’m just hyper.”

Mikasa: “More like hypersensitive.”

“Am not!”

“Oop. You’re being hypersensitive.”

“I’m being triggered!”

Armin scoffed. “You’re always being triggered, Eren.”

“Heeeeeeeey.”

“You’re not even defending your boyfriend, Miki.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Heeeeeeeeey!”

Mikasa laughed so hard snot erupted out of her nose. She snatched a tissue from the bedside table and cleaned it, then snatched another and dried the tears on Eren’s face. It was when she was wiping the sweat from Armin’s forehead that he leaned up to kiss her forehead, and she gazed down at him tenderly. Asked:

“How are you?”

And he knew what she was asking. It was a question the nurses sailed over to him countless times every day, one his own grandfather bombarded him with, one Eren uttered many times before. But he’d hardly heard it from Mikasa. Because she always knew. Her knowing eyes absorbed all of him, every facet, every feature, so that when he grabbed her hand and held it to his chest, she crinkled with joy and a bright smile. All of them did. And they looked at one another. And he responded. 

“Still alive.”

 


	25. As the World Changed So Did We

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have risen from the dead. There’s too much to be said, and so I’ll choose to say nothing. Except: enjoy!

Clamped fists draw white streaks in the air as they pelt the stiff punching bag, pummeling its jolting, shivering frame with every raw blow, nothing but faint rolls of pale gauze shielding bruised knuckles from drawing blood.

Before the bag, it had been walls.

Eren’s hands ache and bash and hammer, weapons he’s forged since he was just a child brawling with the world. Even then, he thinks. Even then. And as he pants through the pain, through the sweat, he fights against his own body, punching harder. He sees how easily it bruises, how easily it hurts.

It’s as if he’s not a part of himself, as is his own limbs are no longer extensions of who he is. He is but a soul encased in a husk that no longer functions right. Realizing he’s tired, he battles harder, his hair falling in his face, droplets dripping off the tip of his nose to land on the matted floor with sounds that echo like faint heartbeats.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

He dribbles from his forehead, chest, arms, drenched in a rain of his own making. Alone, all alone, he grunts loudly when he lands a punch the wrong way, the force of it coursing up his forearm and stinging in his veins.

“I’m sick,” he pants, as if uttering the fact would subside his pain somehow. “I’m sick.”

It’s when he thinks of Armin, of his mom, that his clammy forehead sticks to the leather lining of the punching bag, his large hands outstretched, holding it still.

Everything is quiet.

He can feel his heart, footsteps that rattle in his chest with mighty stomps, trudging nowhere. He remains within himself, despite how direly he wishes to escape, to tear free of this skin, this illness. And he’s been so comfortable with death, with the idea of it, but now that Mikasa is in his life, he finds himself afraid, clinging to every gasp and whisper. Wanting to live. His lips part to usher a long sigh when, as if on cue, she materializes behind him.

He feels her.

Smells her.

In her expensive perfume and leather boots and fancy tote bag, with her long hair pulled back into a neat bun and her eyelashes wisping outward like tufts of black feathers. She blinks. Quietly. And for a second, he thinks he’s imagining her, dreaming of her presence the way forlorn hearts sometimes do.

“Eren,” she smiles when he turns, her eyes scrolling over the whole of him. She stares at the gleaming junction of his collarbones, the tears of sweat that glisten on his scars, the lines and ripples of his heaving stomach, the broadness of his shoulders. And he hates it, how she looks at him. Takes him in. With knowing eyes that scour all the way to the bone.

“Mikasa,” he breathes, wiping his forehead with the edge of his wrist. “What are you doing here?”

“Hitch said you weren’t home,” she answers, her voice a silken tendril unfurling in the air between them, lisp and soft. “So I knew I’d find you here.”

“You stalking me?” he teases, smirking when she rolls her eyes.

“Hardly.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I needed to see you.”

“For?”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Huh?”

“Your hands.”

Surely enough, when he looks down, the white fabric covering his fists dots with small red circles. He hadn’t even felt it. Hadn’t known. Dumbly, he stares at his own blood until Mikasa seizes his hands, whence she begins to uncover them. Her palms are smooth and tiny next to his calloused touch, gently unveiling his wounds. He winces when she runs a fingertip around the raw flesh, whispering, “How long have you been fighting?”

Eren smiles. “All my life.”

She snorts. “I meant in here, you dork.”

He laughs, but says nothing. Somehow, he thinks she knows he’s been stuck in here all morning. And, watching her, viewing the way the plumes of her eyes flit with every gentle blink, he wonders whether she knows he’s sick too, the way she sensed it all around Armin, around Mom. She splits her lips and lifts her gaze to his and he thinks she’ll tell him, say _I know. I know. I know what you are and I still accept you and I will stay with you and I will never leave you, never._

But what parts from her mouth is, “Do you have a first-aid kit around here?”

They do, but he shakes his head, whispers, “I don’t need it.”

Mikasa sighs, her body shrinking even smaller. And Eren smiles softly at how puny she looks beside him, this strong fervent being all parceled into a tiny frame. Her fingers clench around his hand, and she frowns at his oozing knuckles as if she could cure him with her gaze. She looks so worried. He snorts, coiling his hand around hers and pulling her in a tight embrace, squeezing.

A gasp. Grunts. “Eren!”

“I’ve missed you,” he murmurs into her hair, grinning when she slaps his sweaty bicep.

“You’re all sticky!”

“I know, isn’t it great?”

“Eren, gross!”

“I needed to see you too.”

“You need a shower.”

“It’s only been two days, but still.”

“Two days since you showered?”

“Since I saw you, silly.”

“Oh.”

They both giggle, her arms around his shoulders, palms at his sweaty back. He feels them pat him gently, a friendly gesture he plays with in his mind.

Now that he’s ill, is he allowed to be brash? To imagine her nails cutting paths along his spine, that one time after ballet practice when they snuck backstage and she covered his mouth to silence him as her leotard was tucked to the side and he’d moved in her?

Her skin sticks to his, and he muses at the thoughts in his brain, forgiving himself because dying men are a bit more desperate, he supposes. And she’s biting her lip when they pull away from one another, stifling a laugh and crinkling her nose. He boops the tip with the pad of his finger, and suddenly all of his pain, all of the blood on his knuckles—numbed away.

“You smell,” she tells him.

He snaps the waistband around his hips. “I’ll go shower.”

Eren grins, turns, prances away. Ridiculous, truly, how quickly his mood shifted upon finding her there. He can feel her eyes on his torso, drilling holes into the bare expanses of him. When suddenly she stops him. When suddenly, she says, “Wait.”

Says, “Can I stay?”

Says, “Here? With you?”

Eren halts and turns to look at her, her smell wafting off his skin, her calm gaze quelling the bruises and scars on his body. “What for?”

She’s so quiet, he barely hears her. She’s wringing her hands together. Chewing on that lip. “I know you have training today. Can I stay and watch you?”

Eren’s dimple flares. “You’ve got nothing better to do, huh?”

Mikasa throws her hands up in the air, a dazzling smile cutting her mouth. “Guilty as charged.”

He steps closer to her but catches himself before he falls, before he can hold her face and bring her close and taste her. Because ever since he found out he’s sick, he’s had trouble containing himself. He feels like a fuse about to burst, wailing and hissing and spitting out fume. Burning. Burning for her.

Dimming his demeanor, he whispers, “Sure.” Smiles. Contains. And when he opens his mouth again he almost tells her everything, tells her he’s dying and that he loves her and that if it were up to him, she’d tack him to his skin so that she’d never leave. And he loves the way her eyes cling to his muscles, how her cheeks pinken and she stiffens, clears her throat.

How did Armin not go around kissing every pretty girl he ever saw after being diagnosed with cancer? How was he not spurred with an overwhelming bout of courage in the face of death? Where once it was a coy want that churned within him, now Eren pulses, sore with longing, with need. More than ever, he breathes for her, his heartbeats echoes that call her name. And as she stands there in all her silent grace and bright aura he lets himself venture: What will she do when she finds out? Does she already know? Would she finally stay with him? Could pity transform to love?

With that, he realizes he’s desperate.

What feels like worlds away from her, the distance is still not enough to hide how she peeks at the v-shape adorning his hips before closing her eyes and sighing. He thinks of teasing her, playing with the ruddiness on the apples of her cheeks. But he simply halts. Breathes. Tells her, “Sure, Mikasa. I’d love that.”

**—o—**

The gym is teeming with childish squeals and giggles, a chorus of shouts and little grunts that rise over the sound of Eren and Ymir training their younglings. It’s their job, but somehow the two manage to make it seem like they are playing, guiding the large band of children through different moves, all foreign to Mikasa, a dancer, whose self-defense is lavish pirouettes and jumps and twirls.  

She watches patiently from the bleachers, thinking of Historia, her offer, her “come to the theatre on Friday at five o’clock,” because “Daddy has an opening in this Spring’s upcoming play,” and, “it’s time you dance again, Mikasa.”

Perhaps, she thinks, it’s time she does.

Gazing at Eren as he wraps up the session, she glints with all the different ways to tell him. She knows he’ll be content, anticipates his grinning eyes and big smile, that one cirrus of hair that falls over his face when he laughs so that he looks so much younger. And her body feels warm where he’d touched her, vivid and palpable where his arms had clenched around her frame. Held her. Breathed her. And she feels both nervous and excited, because at twenty-six, ballerinas are already retiring, not beginning anew. It’s a miracle Historia managed to find her a spot in this Spring’s upcoming play—or, well, an audition, to say the least.

Who’s to say she’ll even land a role?

She clears her throat and rises, descending the bleachers to grunt into Ymir’s tight, sweaty hug. Her freckles are shaded little dots all scattered under the sheen glow of her sweat. Some small children cling to her legs.

“Sensei,” they squeak. “Sensei!”

They embrace for a moment longer, then talk briefly about Historia and her offer. And when Ymir is finally free of all the tiny gripping hands, she asks her, “You gonna do it?”

Mikasa feels herself nodding, feels the words erupt from her chest, “Absolutely.”

“Have you told Eren?”

“Not yet.”

“He’s gonna be so happy.”

“I know.”

“Go tell him.”

“Yes.”

When her eyes scroll over to where he stands, she sees him chattering away with some parents. Coyly, slowly, she makes her way to him, her news pounding fervidly in her chest, vibrating behind her teeth. _I’m going to dance again, Eren. Just like you wanted. Just like you said. Are you proud of me?_

_Please be proud._

_Please be proud of me._

His bright eyes pull away to land on her, scrutinizing and calm. “Hey, stranger,” he smiles, to which the child at his feet promptly squeals.

“Sensei,” the little girl peeps, tugging at his pant leg. “Is that your girlfriend?”

Eren looks at Mikasa. She sputters. Hides her smile. Turns red.

“No,” Eren says benevolently, patting the youngling’s unruly hair. “She’s my friend.”

“Like, your _girl_ -friend?”

“No,” he answers sweetly, smiling at her parent. “Like, my buddy.”

“Ohhhhh,” the kid gasps, her small eyes rolling up to Mikasa. She studies her for a moment before motioning Eren to come closer with her little finger. When he’s crouched way down to match her meager height, she whispers something in his ear.

His eyes go wide. Then he laughs, answers, “Alright. Someday, I will.”

Despite herself, Mikasa knows she’s blushing. She hides her face in her scarf, peeking up at Eren once they’re all alone.

“Children love you,” she says dumbly, cringing at the quiver in her voice.

His smile is huge. Mikasa fights the urge to poke his dimple, to trace the outline of his lips with her fingertips. And she clears her throat and moves closer to him so that she smells him, feels him, inhales his soapy citrusy scent.

“Eren,” comes her voice, and it’s light, hazy, barely loud enough to reach his ears. “I need to tell you—”

“Was I good today?”

“Huh?”

“With the kids.”

“Oh. Yeah, your were. Why?”

“I worry.”

“About?”

“Them.” He pulls a lock of hair from her face. “You.”

“Oh.” Mikasa heaves, and when her eyes close she sees him shimmering behind her eyelids, sees their shaky hands clamped together backstage after ballet, her seventeen-year-old body tightening as she straddled his hips and covered his mouth and—

She clears her throat.

In an outpour of breath: “I’m going to dance again.”

Eren’s eyebrows flit upwards. “Oh?”

“Yes,” she gasps, suddenly realizing she’s shaking. With her breath high in her lungs and something warm and safe and secure fluttering in her belly, she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes and says, “I am going to dance, just like you told me to.”

She’d expected laughter, joy, anything but what happens next.

Eren’s bright eyes rim and glow red with tears. She gasps at the sight of them, moves to console him but he coils away.

“I’m sorry,” he laughs quietly, rubbing his eyes like a little boy. “Holy shit, what’s wrong with me?”

“Are you crying?”

“No.”

“Eren, don’t cry!”

“Shh, just ignore me.”

“Never,” Mikasa tells him softly, placing a hand on his arm. She can feel the muscles of his forearms, the veins that protrude and run along his skin. And with a happy start she wonders when it was that this bubble of safe distance between them had been popped, when touch had been deemed okay and acceptable.

She knows she shouldn’t, but she doesn’t care. In front of everyone, she holds his face and moves it so that he’ll look at her. And when he opens his eyes again, they’re all green and blue and breathtaking. Pure. She wants to kiss him. She feels herself panic slightly at the thought, but it is chaste and meek and welcome. Primal. Like the simple desire to breathe or think or blink.

She bites her lip and leans in close and tells him, “Thank you for being my friend. I never would’ve had the courage to try again without you.”

He sighs.

Deflates.

Holds her thin wrists and gently tears her touch away from him. And she knows him well enough to sense that there’s something he isn’t telling her, that there’s truths that clatter in his soul, in his mouth. And she wants so badly to break them free, to savor them in her mouth, her tongue.

Dizzy with longing, she clears her throat and briefly wonders what is wrong with her, when it was that her composure frayed this much. But being with Eren does that to her, and she became a willing subject of much tumultuous emotion when she decided to be with him again. And thus she lets the feelings run along her system, kissing her every nerve end with little shimmering sparks.

This is what he is, this is what he does—brings her to life with his very presence.

“What’s wrong?” she questions quietly, staring at the fresh tears that well up in his eyes. And he looks so young. A child. So placid. So new. “What is it, Eren?”

“Nothing.” He silences her with a sniffle, with a kiss on her cheek. “I’m just proud of you. I’m happy, that’s all.”

And she doesn’t even try to hide how she’s staring, how she doubts, how she clings to his air as he suddenly tears free of her, shakes his head, walks away. Leaves her. Her skin tickles where he’d kissed her, smoldering with a want that was not met, with the desire to have turned, slightly, slowly, and brought his mouth to hers in the name of unmasking what they both suspect, what neither of them know how to pronounce yet.

**—o—**

“We can’t sleep together anymore.”

Steadily, Eren’s eyes move up from his guitar to Hitch. Blinking. They swallow up the way her posture stiffens, how her back straightens and her shoulders square, wayward strands of flaxen silk curling around her face, framing it. Her lips are pursed and still, parting only to add:

“It has nothing to do with your…” she trails off, her eyes flitting here and there. They survey the walls of his apartment, the stacks of books, the dust, the lonely furniture, until finally they land on him.  “Your… pee-pee problems.”

“Oh, my god,” Eren breathes. She quickly moves toward him, sitting across from him on the couch, the cushioned seat sinking where her body settles on top of it.

He can’t will his eyes to meet her, especially when she sputters, “Trust me, Eren I love our sex. I really do! It’s just—”

“I know,” he drones, his eyes falling shut slowly. A sigh runs through him. Weary. Long. “I know.”

Hitch’s piercing eyes soften, staring at him. “What?”

“Mikasa.”

“How do you…?”

He shrugs. “I’m a shitty person. And an even shittier liar. I know you all know about her.”

Hitch is silent. Her lashes pulse with every soft blink, eyes cast to some distant point in space, whence they fly to him and she whispers, “You only get hard when you think of her.”

Eren is careful not to react. Mustering his blandest tone, he states, “Please, don’t remind me.”

His friend stares. Her chest sinks with a long breath beneath her snug tank top, the sleeves of her cardigan falling from her shoulders, exposing the dull blades of her bones protruding from beneath her skin. She seizes his hand and promptly places it atop her breast, ignoring his look of surprise and leaning in to kiss him languidly, longingly, on the lips.

A second.

Two.

Then she sighs, crinkles her nose, pulls back. Eren’s hand wilts from her chest like a dying flower.

“I can’t do this to you anymore, Eren,” she whispers, her breath humid on his face. “You should be with her.”

He scoffs, strumming a chord on his guitar. The vibrations of the sound ring in his ears, shaking the thoughts that fill his mind. He can’t even believe he’s having this conversation right now. With a grimace, he says, “Why does everyone conveniently forget the part where she’s almost married?”

“Who gives a shit, dude? You were there first.”

“No thanks.”

“I’m seeing someone else.”

She’d said it so abruptly, Eren thinks she’s joking. But when he lifts his eyes to scrutinize her, he finds no cattish grin, no gleaming eyes, no playful aura. She’s serious.

He coughs. “Who?”

“Marlowe.”

“For how long?”

“A while now.”

Eren shakes his head, sets his guitar on the ground below them. Flinching, he asks, “You mean you were fucking me while you were going out with him?”

Hitch laughs. It’s robust, a spurt of giggles. “Technically, we stopped fucking _way_ before that.” She points to his pants.

He nods. “Ah.”

With a lithe hand at his cheek, she whispers, “Eren. Eren? Look at me.”

He does.

“I love you. I really, really do. But you’re suffering. Please, talk to me.”

Eren shakes his head imperceptibly, wallowing in the absence of her hand as it falls away from his face. “About what?”

Hitch is so close he can smell her breath, taste the ancient sweetness of her words, the stinging aftertaste of her fervor. And he thinks for a moment of how much they both have changed, how they went from strangers who talk to strangers who fuck to friends that now sit and stare at one another.

“What are you hiding?” she whispers, her voice light, merely grazing his ears. “What are you carrying? Please, let me carry it too.”

“You can’t,” he breathes, eyeing the way her eyebrows furrow, how her lovely face twists and morphs to an expression of worry, of hurt.

“Why not?”

“It’s not your problem.”

“Eren…”

“It’s all good,” he chuckles lightly, waving her away. “We don’t have to have sex anymore. I hope you and Marlowe have a good life together, Hitch. I always knew you had a thing for him.”

And with that he sees her in her ruby shimmery dress from the first night he met her, when he’d approached her dancing frame at a bar only to walk her home and find out they are neighbors.

And with that he sees her standing on his doorway, her look of concern and equal annoyance at her being awoken at ass crack of dawn by his boisterous night terrors.

And with that he sees her splayed open on his bed, sees her feline eyes fixed on him and tastes the endless pants that tumbled from her mouth and into his own.

And he can hardly believe that their little ordeal is officially over now, that he’s no longer allowed to seek her out in the middle of the night, rap his fists on her door and anticipate her familiar heat to quell him, dull his aches.

It seems that life is slowly stripping him of all his comforts. And when he goes to open his mouth to say more, to belabor on the fact that yes, truly, it’s okay not to fuck anymore even if he does thoroughly enjoy her company and he’s too shy and lazy to seek out another partner and it sucks to only be able to get hard at the thought of a girl he can no longer have, his words are cut short by the sudden landing of a punch at his arm.

“Ow!” he yelps, rubbing the reddening area. “Hitch, What the fuck?”

“You stupid idiot,” she seethes angrily, her nostrils flaring. “You smelling sack of idiot.”

Eren’s eyes grow enormously wide, his mouth hanging slack where words fail to aid him. “Um?” is all he can muster. “Okay?”

“God, you piss me off,” Hitch grumbles, her eyes spiraling in their sockets.

Eren blinks dumbly, a hand latched to where it hurts, rubbing. “Explain.”

“You dumb butt milk— I had a thing for you!”

He blinks. “You…” Halts. “Wait…” Stammers. “Y-you what?”

Royally annoyed, Hitch flares her nostrils. She looks kinda funny, pouting and flaring her little nose. But what comes out of her mouth next is fully serious. She’s nearly glaring at him, the way women sometimes do, expecting you to know and understand what they’re feeling.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve liked you?” she asks him.

Eren scoffs. “Me?”

“No, my grandmother. Yes, you!”

“But…” He closes his eyes, a wave of self-disgust washing over him. When he opens them again, he stares intently at his close friend, whispers, “Why?”

Hitch, never being one for gentleness, hits him again.

“Mother of fuck,” he breathes through pursed lips, flinching at the blow. But before he can retaliate, his friend is seizing his face in her hands, pressing her palms against the preens of his stubble and sighing.

“Eren. I need to tell you something.” She pauses for dramatic effect. And then: “You have no idea how wonderful you are.”

His eyes are dull and distant, fixated on her face. He stares at the tip of her nose, realizes he’s kissed every inch of her except for that. And wonders why. Would that have been too intimate? Too chaste? Was their relationship that perverse that he wasn’t allowed to marvel at the tiniest of her details?

He sighs. “I’m hardly wonderful.”

Hitch goes on as if she had not heard him, her hands holding him tighter. “Don’t you ever wonder why we’re doing this for you? Why we’re helping you with Mikasa? We just want you to be happy. We love you, Eren. We just want you to be happy.”

Slowly, he shakes his head. And he sees her. Her. Sees her clothes from this morning and her hair and her eyelashes and the rose tint of her cheeks and her cupid’s bow and he sighs, sighs and says, “I can’t keep lying to her.”

Hitch’s gaze hardens. “Then tell her the truth.”

“I can’t.”

“Ow!! Hitch, damn it! Are you going to keep punching me?”

“I’m going to break this guitar on your pretty face, Eren Jaeger.”

“Okay, okay, fine.”

“Will you cooperate?”

“I’ll… ugh. I will.”

Finally, her hands fall away from his face. There is silence. In the midst of the muted air, their eyes lock and squint. Hers in concentration. His in annoyance. Whence finally, she takes a deep breath and says, “I am going to ask you some questions and you will answer them, got it?”

Eren guffaws. “Fuck me.”

Hitch begins. “When did you meet Mikasa?”

“I was nine.”

“When did you first kiss her?”

“What?”

“Answer me.”

He pauses. Swallows. Remembers. Heears her young little voice echo: _I love you like the stars love the moon._

Slowly, he utters, “I was ten.”

“When did your mother die?”

“I don’t want to talk about—”

“Eren.”

The muscle on his jaw flickers as he tightens it. “I was ten.”

Hitch’s mouth drifts open, hangs ajar. “Jesus.”

Eren doesn’t allow a second of silence. He goes to stand, stopping only when his friend's hand grips his thigh firmly. “Are we done now?”

“No. When did you first realize you liked her?”

“When I met her.”

“That you loved her?”

“Same answer, Hitch.”

“You took her virginity, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you lived together. This Armin, your friend, something happened.”

“Yes.”

“But that’s not everything. You lost more. Loved more. Something broke you.”

Eren laughs. “How do you know all this?”

Hitch shrugs. “Call it instinct.”

“Oh, okay. Are we done now?”

“No. One more question.”

“Yes?”

He’s never seen her this serious, never witnessed the look that stretches over her face, that shadows her playful corners and turns them dark. In a voice he cannot recognize, she asks him, “Do you love her, Eren?”

He takes a deep breath, the smell of dust and old furniture drifting into him. With an exhale, comes his answer, “I can’t.”

“That is not what I asked.” Hitch shakes her head, her voice lowering an octave, becoming a staccato. “Do. You. Love. Her.”

Eren scoffs. Looks away. And when his eyes go over his own home, he sees black tendrils of hair swaying in the air with every dance, every step, every motion. Sees pink streaks adorn the ceiling, clacking heels echo off invisible footsteps on the floor. And his own apartment has been decorated, painted with slivers of the girl’s presence, every time she’s ever visited etched onto the remembering walls. They never forget. He never does.

“I adore her,” he hears his own voice betray him, feels his eyes close at the truth. When they open again, they see Hitch. See her see him.

“Then fucking fight,” she breathes, barely a feather above silence. “What makes you think you’ve got the luxury of time? That you can afford to love people and not show them, not tell them?” She scoffs, her breath billowing out her. “Before you know it, things can disappear in a second. But love remains. Mikasa remains. You remain. Fuck, that’s so important, Eren. So fucking important.”

He shakes his head and feels like crying. Feels like crumbling this strong demeanor and breaking his own walls. He wants to bleed, to ache, to be vulnerable. And he feels his own surrender coming, feels the tears begin to form and his voice crack with, “But it’s too late.”

Hitch laughs, an audacious noise that breaks the silence. “I don’t give a fuck who she’s marrying. You love her. You fucking love her. You were there first. Her first everything. And she’s here, she’s back. There’s a reason for that.”

Eren wipes at the tears forming in his eyes, runs his hands down his face. He feels his own stubble stab at his palms, wilts with a sigh that courses through the entirety of him. “I’m tired,” he breathes. “So tired, Hitch.”

“No,” she sighs. “You’re just avoiding the truth.”

Eren glowers at her. “I’m not.”

“You’re the one that always tells us to fight, so why aren’t you doing it?”

“Enough.”

“Answer me!”

“I’m dying, Hitch!”

All her seriousness, her fire, he persistence—gone.

Her mouth falls open, little choking noises drifting out, words that fail to come to fruition.

It breaks Eren’s heart.

“What?” Hitch gasps weakly, and when he lifts his gaze to her face, he sees fat balls of water spilling from her eyes, moistening her cheeks. Her lower lip quivers, disappears between her teeth. “No,” she sputters quietly, and Eren feels himself beginning to cry again. “No. Please, no.”

“I got what killed Mom,” he confesses, the truth spilling so unbidden out of him. He has contained it for so long, stifled it, and now it screams. “I got it. I—”

Hitch crumbles. She holds her chest, cries with him. A pair of sniveling, weeping souls, they hold each other. She tumbles into him, and he holds her, wraps his arms around her and feels himself break at how her body jolts with every sob. He’s never seen Hitch cry, let alone in this manner. “How long have you known?” she sniffles, her tears moistening his shirt. “How long, Eren?”

He closes his eyes, breathing in the top of her head. “A while.”

She pulls away from him, wiping her tears, imploring, “Why?” Begging, “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Eren doesn’t answer. He’d thought he could handle this all on his own, but seeing her like this, seeing Hitch’s reaction, it only makes him wonder how the others would feel. How Mikasa would feel. How could he ever tell them?

Hitch summons a tenderness he has never seen in her before. With damp cheeks and a runny nose and shaking lips, she tells him, “Eren. Let people love you. Let them help.”

“How? How can anyone help me?”

“Just look around you,” she shrugs her shoulders, her face tightening as she fights to hold in her tears. “Look at all of us, Eren. Your friends. We’re all here for you. Always.” She sighs, and she looks as if she could faint. Light and breathless, she takes his scarred hands into her own, kisses them. Whispers into them and closes her eyes so that she looks like she’s praying. “You are so vital. You’re so special. Please, don’t suffer by yourself.”

“Hitch. I love her.”

“I know.”

“I love her and I feel like I have no time. It’s hopeless.”

“But what if it’s not?”

“Are you saying I should hope to get her back?”

She shakes her head, a bubble of saliva popping between her parting lips with a sigh. “I’m saying you _need_ to.”

Eren’s eyes grow tender. They stare at his friend, swallow her being. She’s so beautiful, always has been. And he feels this overwhelming need to protect her, to shield her from even his own hurtful truths. Remembering just how strong she is, he surrenders. He cries. Tears spill from his eyes and he feels himself uncapped, flowing affluently. This is what it is to feel. To allow. To simply be and let the circumstances of his life fully set in.

He’s sick.

He’s dying.

It’s all happening. It’s all true.

“People survive illnesses every day,” Hitch consoles him, wiping the tears from his cheeks. He wants to flinch away, to be strong, but he lets her hold him, lets himself break. “People fall in love again every day. Why aren’t you allowed to do the same?”

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Futile, words are. He simply shakes his head and shrugs, a tiny smile juxtaposing the moist redness of his eyes. His chest feels like it’s full of sobs. Full of a thousand tiny knives that cut into him. He wants to set it all free. To be weak. For once, just once, not be the strong one.

“Seek help,” Hitch beseeches him. “Get treatment. And tell Mikasa how you feel. Tell her, Eren.”

His heart flutters at the possibility, at the image of her features thawing with the knowledge. Or does she already know? Does she smell his love on him like some sort of plague? But what if she doesn't know? What if confessing himself gives birth to something new, something beautiful?

And what if it doesn’t?

“You don’t think she’ll hate me?” he asks Hitch, to which she smiles softly.

“I think she couldn’t love you more.”

“Really?”

“Call it instinct.”

Hitch shrugs a shoulder, and with that, their crying subsides. She places a gentle hand on his forearm, caressing the scar he has there, the thin blonde hairs that litter his skin.

“Tomorrow,” she whispers, as if her lips were setting a secret free. “You and me. We’re going to the hospital and finding a way to beat this fucking thing. I’m here with you. Every step of the way.” She kisses him, first on one cheek, then the other. Against his skin, she says. “You’re getting help, Eren. I don’t care what you say. I’m not just gonna watch you die. You’re getting help.”

He closes his eyes at the sound of her voice, at the sensation of all the syllables and vowels grazing his face. Smiling, he tells her, “I’m gonna miss our sex.”

She laughs. It’s such a lively sound, such a colorful sound. It bursts between them, a flash of hope and life.

“Oh, and by the way? If you tell anyone about me crying for you, I’ll dice your balls into teeny tiny pieces. Got it, Jaeger?” Her tone is menacing, but when his eyes lift to scrutinize her, she gives a tiny wink. And he loves her. Loves what they have. Loves that even in the face of death, amidst all the darkness, glimmers of light prevail.

“Yes, ma’am.”

**—o—**

You cannot ask her how it was that she found herself here, of all places, auditioning for a role in a play she did not know existed just days before, standing in front of Christa Lenz and her father and and a dozen other eyes that pierce fiercely into her through their cool, fixed gazes, absorbing her every tiny breath and blink and lull.

You cannot ask her to explain how it is that she wills herself to move, how the mechanics of her body whir to form fluid waves that carry her through the motions, that sweep her feet up into the air and elongate her limbs to a point as the music escalates, ever so gently, to crescendos and swells and twirls.

You cannot tell her to describe how it feels so dance again, to awaken an old ghost from a seemingly eternal slumber only to feel it consume her, drive her, pulse through her, and escape in panted breaths as her heaving chest billows and falls and she holds the final pose, all that came before but a simple fleeting memory, a flurry of activity belonging to her past.

You cannot will Mikasa to express what it felt like, what it was, to see her name under the supporting role, second only to the main role, given honorably to Christa Lenz. Historia. Her friend.

“How did I get it?” she’d asked her breathlessly over the phone, with tears in her eyes and the shock of being alive rattling through her body. “How me?”

“You really are much better than you think you are,” is all her friend told her. “Believe in yourself, Mikasa.”

And she hung up the phone.

**—o—**

Fast forward through weeks of ballet recitals, and the sun melts the snow, the trees stand perched with all their age and wisdom, hissing against the warmer breeze. It’s still winter, it’s still cold, but the world has shifted, thawed. The sun arises with renewed intent, bestowing on the land a new purpose with each virgin light. The warmth it offers paints cheeks pink and sheds bodies of their copious layers, smoothing the hilled surfaces of the streets to fine lines of mush and melting ice.

As the world changes, so does Eren.

His health stands stagnant. And he knows he’s sick, but his bones only hurt sometimes and his body bruises only when he goes too hard at practice and Annie body slams him a lot. They know now. They all know about his illness except Mikasa. And he keeps it that way. Plans to keep it that way until she’s done performing at the play.

Fast forward through weeks of ballet recitals, and the air’s frozen kiss stiffens the skies once more, and they cry big fat clumps of white puffs that bathe everything in blinding white, sheets of sleet that make boots slip and tires skid and weather news advice for all to stay indoors. The winter seems never-ending, encrusting cars and old buildings with pale runes that look like the whole world is broken, cracked by the plunging temperatures and unforgiving chill.

As the world changes once more, so does Mikasa.

She’s still in awe of how she managed to land a role in this play, and with opening night only a few calendar strokes away, she spends little to no time with her fiance and friends. But they understand. Eren understands. And this role is so much like her real-life one, as her character is mute and uses her body to communicate her emotions, dancing through the stages of life to convey her ever-expanding existence. In the play, however, her character meets a grim fate, falling in the hands of a jealous old king that falls in love with her, and orders her execution after she rejects his love.

Fast forward through weeks of ballet recitals, and the time to perform has come. Everyone’s ready. Everyone waits. Their pented breaths stand high up in their throats and their eyes widen at the spectacle before them.

And as the curtains draw open slowly, slowly, slowly… so does the entire world.

Eren has never seen anything more beautiful in his life. The theatre comes alive with lights that morph to beams across an eternal sky, scattering and compacting to tiny stars that shimmer as they fall like lost jewels. The orchestra begins to play, a single note elongated to a solemn cry that rejoices at the sudden collision of all the other instruments joining its song, elevating it to a symphony.

And with that comes Historia, her tiny frame strong and mighty amid the giant stage, stepping tentatively here and there before taking leaps and twirls that seem difficult but effortless. Her blonde hair is up in a tight bun, lithe body adorned with a lavish tutu and leotard that practically glows in the light, all making her seem like some ethereal being dropped from heaven onto the earth. Her elegant poise is juxtaposed by the crummy appearance of all the other dancers around her, characters of a lower class. Christa’s character belongs to royalty. Tonight, Historia Reiss is the queen.

The story is all about her, but the audience gasps (or maybe it’s just Eren) some moments later when a somber girl in rags lies strewn alone across the stage floor. Slowly, she rises, her back to the world, and her long, flowing hair is recognizable enough for Eren’s heart to somersault within him. For a moment, he is consumed by so much love that when she turns to face the audience, strong lights shining on her pallid face, he nearly cries. The last time he’d ever seen her perform was almost ten years ago. Seeing her dance again is seeing her be born anew. This is a new Mikasa. This is a Mikasa of abandon, of art, of love, of language. A Mikasa that exists only when she’s dancing.

She moves.

And as she does, the music follows. She is the conductor, every sway and lift of her long limbs leading each note and tune that drifts off into the air like a collective whisper. It stops when she halts, resumes when she dips low onto the ground and rises to bloom open like a birthing flower, her petals long rags that hang from her solid frame. She looks so light, her motions like feathers, titillating the eyes that watch her and glue onto the stage. She’s mesmerizing, a creature born of tattered clothes and raspy violins, her face shifting with every new expression, with every meticulous bow.

Then the king appears.

And he chases her, and her gentle movements grow bold. Aggressive. She leaps and spins and runs and flusters when she’s trapped by the majesty, her feeble demeanor growing brash and cold. No, screams her motions. No. And she fights against her fate, against the trifles of her meager life, against the forecul king, and she escapes.

The end of Act One is followed by an intermission, and Eren is a ghost coasting through the crowd of people with his friends. Ymir tries to sneak off backstage to find Historia and Sasha screams about how high Mikasa kicked her legs, Reiner and Bertholdt agreeing on her admirable flexibility, Hitch boating about how she knew she was skilled all along, but Eren hears none of it. His mind, his heart, is left behind with the girl in rags.

He finds it again when Ymir suddenly takes his hand to lead him backstage and he sees her.

“Eren!” Mikasa squeals, her leotard shimmering in the light. It’s completely different from the outfit she had on earlier. This time, she looks like royalty herself. Her clothes are adorned with white and lace, and even her pointe shoes—which clack woodenly on the floor with her every step—seem to be made exquisitely, woven together from silken clouds.

“Mikasa?” he voices dumbly, watching as Ymir whisks away to find Historia among the flock of girls that are applying their makeup and changing into their costumes. He knows he shouldn’t be here, but understands he’s only allowed the special access because he’s friends with the daughter of the man who owns the theatre.

“What are you doing here?” the girl giggles, high off her performance, her new bold makeup only halfway done.

“Ymir brought me to see you,” is Eren’s excuse. He halts, his eyes scouring the whole of her, trying very hard (and futilely) not to cling. “Uhh, to wish you luck.”

She nods. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

For a moment, all that can be heard is the murmurs of the girls getting ready. Some of them eye Eren suspiciously, others seem not to notice him at all, and he knows he should leave soon before he’s kicked out.

“Mikasa,” he blurts suddenly through the frog in his throat.

“Yeah?”

“You are…”

“Yes?”

“You’re…”

“Hmm?”

“You’re so beautiful.”

Her eyes widen. Eren’s do too. Is that what he had meant to say? Certainly, he does mean it. She truly is stunning—especially tonight. But… really, dude? Really?

“Oh, Eren,” she smiles tenderly, her eyes squinting with her small smile.

“I mean…” He clears his throat. “I mean to say…” The silence is awkward. Mikasa waits for him to finish, and the air holds an uncertainty that he’s never felt around her, an aura of unknown. “You were incredible out there,” he settles finally. Much better, he thinks.

The girl smiles again, oblivious to what it does to him. “You think so?”

Eren smiles, too. “I never thought I’d see you dance again. Yet here we are.”

“Here we are.”

“Mom would be so proud.”

“Yours or mine?”

“Both.” He pauses, flitting a stiff hand between them. “And Armin.”

Mikasa’s gaze goes misty. Her voice is merely a breath when she echoes, “Armin.”

Seeing her reaction, Eren smiles brighter. He holds a hand to his heart, feels it beat ferociously. “I am, too.”

She laughs. It’s a childish giggly laugh, the kind she used to make when she was little. And she’s so bright and gorgeous right now. And he wants to hold her. Simply feel her and hold her to remind himself that she’s real, that tonight is truly happening.

“It’s all thanks to you,” she tells him, and she skitters as if she were trying to move some part of herself towards him, trying to touch him but… a bubble of safety is encased around them, and they behave, both of them. They do not touch. They do not even flinch.

Eren sighs, knowing it’s time for him to go.  

“Hey, do me a favor?” he asks her, to which she brightens up again. He laughs fleetingly at her cute demeanor.

“Yeah?”

“Once this whole thing is over, come meet me at our bench?”

“Sure,” she nods slowly, tentatively. “Is everything alright?”

Well, Mikasa, to tell you the truth, a lot of things aren’t alright. And he means to tell you tonight. To tell you he’s sick. To tell you he loves you. Because _“what makes you think you’ve got the luxury of time?”_

“I just have to tell you something,” he says.

“I’ll be there,” Mikasa smiles.

“Sweet,” Eren does as well. And this time, he touches her. He gently— _gently, gently_ —kisses her cheek, the feeling of her flesh at his lips igniting tiny fire kegs throughout his entire body. “Good luck.”  

And she cradles his forearm with her hands. That’s it, that’s all she does. Yet the action holds him in place. Holds him there as he inhales her scent and stands and feels her and closes his eyes and hears her whisper her goodbye—no, her _see you later_.

**—o—**

She somehow manages to escape the band of people that bombard her when the play is over, slinking into the changing room that bursts with a mirage of colors from all the bouquets Jean sent her that sit gawking at her as she dresses, hurries, not even bothering to take off her makeup, and scurries out into the night.

She hails a taxi cab to the park, and once she’s there, the place is oddly crowded for it being nighttime. She finds their bench, sits, and waits.

Waits.

Waits and wonders what Eren could possibly have to say to her. Perhaps she has something to tell him too. But what is it? Her chest feels full of something, something that needs to be set free. She closes her eyes and feels the cool wind on her face and lets her soul speak for her, imagines him already beside her and breathes:

“I love you.”

Startled at her own words, she gapes at nothing, staring out into the night, her breath puffing out as steam and she gasps and slaps a hand over her own mouth. How could she have said that? She wasn’t thinking! Surely, it was an honest mistake.

But she’d felt it.

But she can’t.

But she shouldn’t!

The night is cold, and she waits. Shaking her head, she starts over. Ignores what just happened. Ignores. Erases it. Because surely when he appears she’ll know for sure. Yeah, that’s right. Seeing him, once he tells her what he needs to, she’ll know exactly what she has to say herself.

Except that it seems Mikasa would’ve been waiting for Eren forever.

He never arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who may not know, I had officially decided a while back not to continue this story due to the amount of hate it received. However, so many of you are so emotionally invested in this story (as am I) and I have been needing a healthy escape lately so, here I am. If you are wondering how you can show your support, be sure to leave a review and/or donate to my [ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/A6131VJJ) account (which you can find on my [tumblr](http://sayaanara.tumblr.com/)) as I am facing some financial troubles at the moment after hurricane Maria hit my little island. That being said, thanks for reading, and as always, good luck!


	26. The Time We Said "I Do"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter of pure happiness before things start to go ugly. It's not exactly a filler chapter, as it depicts why Eren calls Mikasa his wife in chapter 5's flashback and sets the tone for much of their future. Also, I have the next chapter already written. Having that said, enjoy the happiness before the climax of the story. Good luck!

“Marry me.”

Mikasa’s gaze lifted from the center of his neck to the preens of his eyelashes. One by one, she counted them, until they blurred to a collective tuft and she smiled, surrendering.

“Yes.”

Eren raised his eyebrows, the ends of his bangs tickling his eyes as he blinked. He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it back, releasing a breath that had lodged itself deep within his being.

“Really?” he asked.

Mikasa grinned, her dazzling smile scrunching up her eyes, hiding them within a cluster of mascara-coated lashes. Her auburn lips seemed to glow in the night, adorning a mouth that was carved to purr a soft litany of, “Yes, yes, yes.”

She nodded her head with every shining affirmation.

Then said, “I promise, I will marry you, Eren.”

And he said, “Then let’s get married tonight.”

And her eyes grew very wide. “Tonight? At prom?”

“Yes,” he told her, his fingers seeking purchase of her skin, and in a voice that disrupted the sky, that shifted the stars and cracked the moon and made the black mantel of night leak through his lips, he breathed, “Tonight, Miki, marry me.”

She was clad in her prom dress—a strapless assembly of pink frills that fell to her knees—and white heels that made her ankles quiver and twist with nearly every step. She was a ballerina, so you would think she was accustomed to being on her toes. And yet all her grace abandoned her that night, so that when she tumbled into Eren and garnered him into a hug, she fell into him, and he caught her, and they both laughed.

Laughed.

Because that night, life was tremendously beautiful.

**—o—**

Prom was a cinch.

It went by so quickly. Partly, because they spent a total of twenty minutes there before calling it quits, but mostly because they were the only ones who seemingly simply didn’t care. Prom is a night constructed by adults to get horny teens to socialize—Mikasa and Eren only wished to socialize with each other. You can imagine how that went for them.

“Wanna get out of here?” he asked into her ear, speaking a tad bit louder so that his voice would rise over the booming music.

Mikasa’s nod was nothing short of vigorous.

“Great,” he grinned, and locked her hand in his. As they ran out of the school building and into Eren’s old truck, they were a frenzy of small giggles and breathless pants, Mikasa having long abandoned her heels, throwing them onto the back seat and laughing so freely her cheeks began to ache.

Eren rammed the key into the ignition, twisted it, and the car purred (more like coughed) to life. “Where to, Miss?” he smiled, his bangs falling over his eyes. Mikasa swiped them away from his face, smiling also.

“To space,” she told him.

Eren nodded.

And with that, they drove away.

Mikasa soon recognized the road they were on, figured out where they were heading. And when Eren parked the car among a bed of leaves, killed the engine, turned to face her, her heart gave a giant and happy leap.

She was complete.

His gaze held the sky over her head, and the scent of his musky sweat filled her senses as he inched in to kiss her tenderly on the lips. He kissed her once. Twice. Then told her, “Let’s get married.”

Mikasa smiled into his mouth. “Here? Now?”

“Here. Now.”

“Let’s do it.”

And they were just kids. Just kids that loved and felt and dreamed and wanted. And they were just happy to bounce off the truck and into the night, to scurry away among the leaves and fallen branches into Their Lake, where they shed their clothes and submerged their naked bodies into the frigid water, yelping and screaming, laughing so loudly, a joyous baptismal of sorts before the big ceremony.

As they swam, Mikasa was careful to keep her body at a safe distance from Eren’s. She’d swam naked with him before, but tonight, the air was different. It breathed something new, something foreign, and she was uncertain of what it was. And so, with tentativeness and fragility, she parted her lips and thus came her voice, “Eren?”

He dipped his head into the water, and when he resurfaced, his hair was slicked back over his head. He looked at her. He spoke.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Eren stared at her. For a moment, he seemed like he could cry. But the emotion was quickly split apart by the beam that broke across his face. He was glowing.

“I love you, too.”

“Like the stars love the moon?”

“Like the stars love the moon.”

And then, everything went quiet. The world seemed to hold its breath, to wait. And they waited also. And they stopped breathing also. And they moved only to draw closer, to feel each other’s heat.

In the water, they began.

“Mikasa, do you take me as your husband?”

The girl grinned, her body light and weightless, set free. Her fingers traced up the muscles of his arms, anchored themselves on his shoulders.

She nodded. “I do.”

Crickets chirped all around them. Their only audience, the witnesses to this night. They screeched in celebration, and as Eren lifted a hand to smooth a lock of hair behind her ear, the world seemed to go quiet once again.

“Eren,” the girl whispered. “Do you take me as your wife?”

He did not even spare a moment’s breath. “I do.”

And they kissed.

And the cheering roared and clamored all around them. The night seemed to applause, to rejoice with them. And as they walked out of the lake, sheepishly covering their bare bodies, simply throwing their garments over themselves before heading home, their vows were signed on an invisible contract, one that wove their souls together eternally, for the stars, the wind, the moon—they claimed it so.

**—o—**

“Ladies first,” Eren motioned for her to enter his room. His dad wasn’t home (no surprises there), and so it was only the two of them inside an unlit home, two souls encased in a humble sanctuary, floating quietly among its walls.

In the silence, their footsteps echoed, muted barefooted muffles against the carpeted floors. And Eren did not turn a light on, so that only the moonlight spilling in from his uncurtained window reigned. It glowed on the crevices of her face, the slopes of her neck, her throat, outlining its bob as she swallowed.

“Eren,” she breathed, her voice a feather. “Sit.”

And so he did.

His bed creaked quietly as he sunk himself on top of it. He stared. At Mikasa, he merely stared. And she inched only a bit closer, not enough for him to completely see her, to completely feel her. And she asked him to take off his clothes.

Without a word, Eren pulled his shirt over his head. He’d done this so many times before, done it for so many girls, and yet he was a novice now, nervous and careful for Mikasa. The fabric stuck to his clammy skin; he smelled of salt water and leaves. But when he was finally in only his trousers, he unzipped them—slowly—and then began to roll them down his legs.

Clad in nothing but his skin, he watched Mikasa’s shadow as it shed his jacket, then began to undo the straps of her dress. It all fell to the ground with a quiet ruffling of fabrics, pooling by her feet. When she bent down to remove her panties, Eren closed his eyes and inhaled, felt the breath course through his body, the blood flow through his veins.

When his eyes opened again, the girl was sitting beside him. Her body gleamed in the night, the slender edges of her figure screaming out at him. He yearned to reach out and touch them, feel her silent light, but her voice rose above the silence, distracting him, pulling him to her. He held his breath.

“Eren,” she said, “touch me.”

He froze.

“Miki,” he began, his hands stiff against his own thighs. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Even through the darkness, he could see her smile.

“You could never hurt me, Eren.”

Silence came again, and through its cracks, she reached for his hand and placed it amid the center of her chest. Eren felt her heartbeat. He asked, “How are you?”

Mikasa smiled again. “Still alive.”

He snorted, remembering Armin’s own words. He missed him. Armin was too sick to go to prom, but they’d visited him before leaving for the school and he had seemed content. Happy. Happy for them.

Slowly, his hand moved to her breast, and he felt her small sigh, felt the softness of her skin, how her breaths ran through her, and swiped his thumb along the small bud of her nipple, feeling it harden. He had never touched her like this before, drawn out the lines of her body to map out all her corners. He got lost in her. Lost in the way she moved closer, closer, to lock her lips with his in a tender buss that united them.

Their kiss was meek. Quiet. And once they pulled away, her eyes were soft and hazy, cast to where his hand still held her flesh.

She guided the calloused surface of his palm across her skin, and finally settled it between her legs. And it struck him how brave she was being, how out of the two of them, it was she who conducted it all.

He moved his hand mechanically, gauging her every reaction, her every breath, the nuances in her expression that shifted ever so slightly. And when it was time to kiss again, it was he who sunk into her, who heard her mewl and pant his name.

They made love.

And when they were done, when an exhausted Eren fell into her arms and pressed his sweaty forehead to her chest, he felt each one of her heartbeats. Counted them. One by one, they filled him, so that her own heart could beat through him, and he realized for the first time in his life what it was to truly love somebody. To breathe somebody. To encase their being within the walls of his own soul.

**—o—**

“Mom, I love her,” he told his angel in his sleep, unaware of the dark eyes that slid open to grin at him, to kiss his cheek, his neck.

Mikasa held her ear to his heart, the way she used to do when they were little, and with every beat that pounded, she said a little prayer.

Keep him with me, Kami.

Keep him close to me forever.

And thus she prayed, prayed, prayed, until her eyes drew shut and the world went black, and a quiet litany beat against her, within her:  _ Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. _

_ Ba-dump. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say thank you to everyone who donated to my ko-fi account. Every little bit has helped tremendously and kept me going! Thank you for reading, for commenting, for donating. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!


	27. The Princess and Her Curse

She takes flight on the second act, her white lace costume glinting and soaring through the stage, pirouettes and giant leaps making her seem like a small bird soaring through the air, dipping and gliding. 

And when it is all done, when the king orders her execution and the queen befalls from her guilt, the crowd breaks into a roar of cheer and applause, many standing and wiping at their teary eyes as the curtains draw shut. But all Eren does is gather himself to leave, to wait for Mikasa at their bench, just as he promised her.

In the bathroom on the second floor, his eyes scour his appearance. He looks tired. Feels tired. His long hair falls disheveled and unruly around his stubbly face, and he thinks of pulling it back, of fixing himself for her somehow.

But what’s the point, a voice in him says. She’s not going to care about how you look. Only about what you’ll have to say to her. And he’s ready, he thinks. He’s ready to confess everything, everything.

Back in the elevator, as the doors hiss nearly all the way shut, a man shouts for him to stop them. Instinctively, Eren crams a hand between the dwindling crack of the doors, and they jam, groan, pull open.

“Thanks,” the man says.

Eren looks up. “You’re wel—”

It’s Jean.

With his business suit and his slicked back hair and his chiseled cheekbones, he walks into the elevator, stands beside Eren, and smiles. It’s a sleazy, slow smile, the kind that knows something, that’s used to winning. It makes Eren uncomfortable. Mad. But he composes himself, smiles back.

“Hello, Jean.”

“Eren.” A nod. “I’m surprised you remember my name.”

“How could I forget?” is all he says, and the elevator doors finally close, leaving them alone in a cramped box of limited oxygen. He hates having to share the same air with this man, so he goes to press on a floor on the elevator keypad, but Jean stops him.

“No, no,” he says. “We’re not going anywhere.” Moving closer, so close that Eren  _ tastes _ his cologne, he breathes, “Mikasa was incredible tonight, wasn’t she?”

Eren nods slowly, wondering where he’s going with this. “She was.”

“And this is only weeks worth of practice. I can only imagine what she was like when she was younger. Was she good?”

“Yes.”

“Of course she was.” Jean cracks his knuckles, one by one. They pop, the sound echoing. There’s a moment of silence, followed by one last pop, and then he’s saying, “You know, before coming here, I watched her get ready. She woke up at dawn, even made herself breakfast. And she sang in the shower. She only sings in the shower when she’s really, really happy. But you know that already, right?”

“I do.”

“I can’t help but notice that she’s awfully content lately. Giddy. Like a little kid. And I wonder why, you know? What changed? What’s made my wife change into this person I  hardly recognize?”

Eren thinks to say something, but before his lips can part, Jean adds, “Even sex is different.”

He flinches.

“I keep looking for things in her I recognize to remind myself that she’s still the same, still my Mikasa. Like how her collarbones always look the same and how she scrunches her little nose when she sneezes and how she covers her face when she laughs.” A pause for breath. And then,  “She’s got this little mole on her butt—it’s real cute, right on her buttcheek. I always look for it when I’m doing her from behind. You know, to remind myself she’s still mine.”

Eren smiles painfully, his grin an utter betrayal of what boils inside. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, Eren, I think you already know all of it. Even about her little mole.”

“What are you saying?”

“Aww,” he mocks, pouting. “You must think I’m an idiot, huh?”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t think I know?”

“Know what?”

He says it so plainly, so expressionless: “That you love her.”

Eren’s eyes widen. He hadn’t expected that at all. Contrasting his emotional reaction, Jean is still blank, still motionless. He says, “You’re in love with my wife.”

Eren shakes his head, his hands clenching. “She’s not your wife.”

“She soon will be.” Jean laughs, and he suddenly carries the demeanor of a friend, trust-worthy and amiable. Grinning, patting a hand on Eren’s back, he says, “Tell me, Eren. How do you live with yourself? How can you cope with knowing that it’s me she goes to bed with at night? That it’s me she kisses and says she loves? How do you handle it?”

Eren is very, very quiet. He doesn’t respond. He stares straight ahead, the elevator becoming tight and fuzzy.

Jean continues without mercy. His serpent hiss is cunning. “You were there first. I know it. You’ve kissed her. You’ve fucked her. And you expect me to be okay with you meddling around in her life.”

Eren scoffs. He nearly can’t believe what is happening. His surroundings are still blurry, yet he focuses his eyes enough to swallow up the man beside him, size him up. “I hate to remind you, but Mikasa’s chosen to be with me again.”

Another smile. “Has she, though? Are you sure you’re not just being selfish?” Jean fixes his tie, runs a hand through his smooth hair. “What makes you think that what you’re doing is right?”

Eren’s voice is lost somewhere in his throat. He barely manages to whisper, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

This time, there’s no smile. This time, Jean grows serious. 

“Really, Eren? You expect me to believe she just magically landed a role in this play out of the blue? That she just randomly decided to dance again? That she stays out until the middle of the night with  _ your  _ friends without  _ you _ having anything to do with it?”

Eren laughs. It’s a cruel sound, and it makes Jean grow angrier. “I don’t see why her being happier has to upset you.”

“Because she’s lying to me. Lying to me because of you.”

“That’s your problem, not mine.”

“And perhaps you’re right about that. I can’t argue with you there. But, unlike you, I can’t live knowing the woman I love is with another man.” Suddenly, Jean grows calmer. It seems he believes he has the upper hand once more. In a low voice, he tells Eren, “You think I can live peacefully knowing that she loved you first? I think part of you hopes that she still does. Am I wrong?”

“No.” Eren’s surprised by his own honesty. “No, you’re not.”

“Of course not,” the man smiles. “Eren, you’re a good guy. I don’t hate you.” A pause. The silence feels long. Until suddenly, “But you’re not allowed to see my wife anymore.”

Eren nearly chokes. “Excuse me?”

“I think something both you and I have in common is that we want what’s best for her, and you’re not that.”

“What?”

“Let me break it down for you: You. Will not. See her. Anymore.”

Eren guffaws. “And what makes you think I’ll do that?”

“Well, what if she hates you?”

He grins. “She doesn’t.”

“You sound awfully confident about that. You forget that I’m the one she’s engaged to.” Jean fixes his tie again, checks his wristwatch, and without even looking at him, says, “What if I told her a little something?”

Eren rolls his eyes. “What?”

“That you’re sick.”

Boom.

His heart falls to his feet with a bang. It physically hurts him.

Jean continues. “That you’ve kept the truth from her all this time. That you planned for her to be in this play and to be with your friends and to be in your life because you can’t let her go?”

Eren hisses through his teeth, “You wouldn’t.”

“What if I told her that you’ve done all of this out of pity? Out of love? You really think she’ll stay with you if she knows you love her? That’s fucking pathetic! She’ll run faster than she ever did the first time she left you!”

A thud.

It takes Eren a few moments to realize the sound came from Jean’s head hitting the mirrored wall. From the reflection, he can see himself. See his own fist drawn up in the air, ready to blow. His other hand coiled in the lapels of Jean’s shirt. See himself. A monster.

Jean laughs breathlessly, shaking his head as if it would numb the pain in his skull. “You,” he pants, “should just do it.” His eyes are fierce, full of fire. “Do it,” he dares him. “Hit me. Do me a favor and make her hate you for me. Hit me.”

Eren’s fist shakes in the air. He grits his teeth, fights every atom in his body not to pummel Jean right in his perfect pearly teeth. But then something occurs to him. 

He’s right.

What makes him think he’s not hurting Mikasa?

“No?” Jean laughs again, wheezing a bit. “Then let me go. Either way, you lose, Eren.”

Blind with anger, Eren punches the wall by his head. Jean flinches heavily, the mirror cracking, fresh drops of blood coursing in rivulets from Eren’s fist.

“Fuck you,” he hisses, tiny balls of spit falling on Jean’s shocked face.

Then the doors slide open, and Eren walks away.

**—o—**

By the time Mikasa makes it home, her legs and hands are frozen numb. She’d waited for Eren for nearly two hours. Curse him, she thinks, wishing he had a phone. But her anger quickly subsides to worry. Is he okay? Did something happen? Or did he just stand her up?

“Curse him,” she says aloud.

Because she’s not supposed to be waiting for him anyway. Not when her fiance is sound asleep at home waiting. Not when her cat needs to be fed. Not when she has another performance early tomorrow.

Curse him.

Slinking out of her clothes, Mikasa jumps into the shower. About ten minutes in, after countless of scenarios playing out in her mind, she comes to the conclusion that Eren merely forgot. He was in a hurry when he told her to meet her there anyway, right? Maybe he just got caught up with something. Tomorrow, she will find him and ask.

Or should she give him the cold shoulder?

Is it considered desperate on her part if she seeks him out? Should she just play cavalier and pretend she never even made it to the park anyway? That he’s not worth even that? Because then perhaps she won’t seem as needy, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. Totally.

Her thoughts are cut short when a cold breeze wafts into the bathroom, indicating that the door has been opened. She hears footsteps, and before he’s even shedding his clothes and making his way into the shower, she knows it’s Jean.

“Hey,” he whispers when he’s behind her. 

Turning around to face him, she smirks. “Hi.”

“You were amazing tonight,” he smiles, kissing her forehead. “I can’t believe you’re mine.”

“Well, believe it,” Mikasa says faintly, wrapping her arms around his neck. She feels his hands slide down her back to her rear, whence they cup her flesh and he hums happily.

“Have I ever told you I love the little mole you have on your butt?”

Mikasa snickers. “That’s random.”

“Well, I do.” His fingers draw little circles where the mole is, and after a moment of what he seemed to be submerged in thought, he asks her, “Where were you tonight?”

Mikasa hides her face on the crook of his neck, lets the water wash over the two of them. “I was out.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re lying to me.”

Shocked, she draws back, her arms falling limply from his neck. “What?” His expression is unreadable, an emotion she can’t recognize etched all over his face. For a moment, he’s a stranger. But then he comes back. Her same old tender Jean, he comes back.

“Nothing,” he smiles, smoothing a wet lock of hair from her face. “I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Eren…”

She tenses at the sound of his name. Whether Jean notices or not, she does not know. 

“What about him?”

It takes him a moment to speak again. When he does, Mikasa notices that his voice falters, gives up somehow. “Nothing.”

“What?” She presses on. “Tell me.”

Again, there is a moment of silence. The water splashes and whooshes on their naked stagnant bodies, creating a whitenoise that nearly drowns out his response.

“I spoke to him after the play.”

Mikasa blinks, notices her heart beating strongly. “And?”

“And…” Jean says, tracing the skin between her breasts. “He’s happy you’re happy.”

“Hmm,” she hums, her mind drifting to the previous few hours, to the truth of her emotions. Because she’s upset that Eren didn’t show up, worried as to why, and confused by Jean’s sudden comments. A flicker of a thought suggests he has something to do with Eren not showing up, but she quickly dismisses it. He would never.

Kissing him on the lips, Mikasa asks her fiance, “Are you happy I’m happy?”

Smiling against her mouth, he replies, “I am.”

“Well, good.”

“Let’s get married.”

Mikasa laughs. “We are.”

“No, I mean, now.”

Slowly, she draws back, her eyebrows knitting together. “What do you mean now?”

“Next month. Through the court, let’s just do it.”

“Jean…”

“You don’t want to?”

“It’s not that, it’s just…” Eren. It’s just Eren. It’s just that he’s all she can think of right now and her addled mind betrays her, flashes images and memories of the man she missed tonight, the one she misses now. Shaking her head as if the gesture alone would be enough to steady her thoughts, she says,  “Can we talk about this later?”

Jean nods. “Ah.” And he goes to leave.

Mikasa stops him with a hand at his wrist. “No, Jean, wait.” He halts. Turns. Looks at her. “Let’s do it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect.” His grin is tainted with a hint of mischief. “We can start the honeymoon now.”

“What do you—? Oh.”

They laugh.

And it’s normal, so normal, when the hands she feels roaming through her naked body don’t belong to the man before her, but to the one in her head. His face is painted on the walls of her heart, and they reflect on the backs of her eyelids, between her skin and her bones, so that all she sees and feels is this absent ghost around her, within her. It’s such a practiced litany when her lips betray her, whisper a name that does not belong to the one searing on her tongue, burning to break free. 

Curse him, she thinks. Curse him.

**—o—**

The last thing Eren ever wanted was to hurt her.

And yet he knows he has. So he chooses to love her the best way he knows how, chooses to revert back to their old ways, the ancient ways, the right ways. Back to strangers. And he wonders what his life would be now had he not ran into her that one night, had he not smelt and felt and held her. Would he still be alive today? Would his heart still have found a reason to keep on beating? Would his lungs have processed oxygen quite the same way? Because now he must learn to breathe anew, to become accustomed to the absence of her scent, for his heart now vows to love her from afar. For it vows to no longer hurt her.

So he rids himself of her, rids himself of her in the only way he knows how. He erases the traces of her that she’s painted in his life, scattered all across his home, his work, his breathing space. He scours the remains of her and burns them deep within his heart, contains them carefully so that they do not spill free. Because loving someone sometimes means being a stranger to them, eliminating your own toxic air from their pure one. So he tells himself that with time, the bits of him that have be plastered onto her will eventually disappear and she will forget him, just as he solemnly swears (and fails) to forget her. 

The heart is a stubborn lover. It beats and reverberates tiny breaths of her name. Here and there, he catches himself falling, catches himself only steps away from where he knows she’ll be. And something in him always dies when he forces himself to tear away on the opposite direction. Because how do you teach a flame to stop burning? How does one ever cease to adore Mikasa Ackerman? 

He can’t.

He just can’t.

“I love her,” he tells himself, tells his friends, tells the world. And they watch him with pity, agree to stay away from her too, to stop hurting her. Agree to help him once more, the take part in yet another plan, this time to rid themselves of the girl.

And he swears, Eren swears, that what he is doing is right. Because even if he does die in the process, he’s setting her free, breathing her alive.

Right?

**—o—**

What the heck is going on with everyone?

First, it was Eren. Then, Hitch. Then, Ymir and even Historia are flaking out on their plans! One by one, they each seemingly abandoned Mikasa, steering their gazes away when hers landed on them. And why? What is wrong? What did she ever do to them?

An old sense of isolation settles in when, during one of her last performances, her eyes scoured the crowd to find—yet again—no trace of Eren. 

No trace of anybody. 

And when she’d gone to his apartment that night, her fists rapped on a silent door. Nobody answered. The world had gone quiet. The world had gone still.

Slowly, slowly, the colors began to drain from her life, and what once was a wild frenzy of emotions became a dull monotonous routine. Wake up, eat, perform, sleep. Wake up, eat, perform, sleep. Not once did she get to see her friends to invite them to her wedding, to tell them about her new plans, her new life, her sooner-to-be husband.

And it was on the last day of performances, before the show, when she was clad in nothing but a leotard, a shrugger, leggings, and her coat, that she escaped one last time to find Eren Jaeger. 

Over the last couple of days, she’d become nearly frantic, and she knew he was deliberately avoiding her. Knew that everyone was. But she impatiently needed to know why. Needed to know what she ever did to any of them. 

It is on that very same day, right around noon, that she stumbles into Annie.

“Hey,” the blonde says, startling her.

Mikasa jumps, gazing all around her to find the source of the voice. She knows it’s Annie, but doesn’t fully gauge her presence until her eyes fall on her at Sasha’s cafe. She’d gone there in a state of full surrender and desperation, when upon hearing her prayers, the heavens sent her a familiar face.

“Annie,” Mikasa whispers, rising from her seat. Her thighs tap the edge of the table, the chocolate tart and hot chocolate she’d gotten as a forbidden snack before her performance shaking slightly. 

“Sit,” Annie tells her, her steely gaze cutting into her.

Doing as she says, Mikasa lowers herself back onto her chair as Annie takes the one across from her. Realizing she’s never really spoken to her directly, she feels rather awkward and slightly intimidated, almost defensive of the woman’s presence. Her wrist brace is gone, but her right eye is slightly bruised. A battle wound of sorts. The marking of a fighter.

They sit in silence for a moment, Mikasa studying the quiet presence before her, Annie doing the same, until finally the latter opens her mouth and says, “I came here because I knew you’d be here.”

Mikasa is slow to answer. When she finally does, her eyebrows are up to her hairline. “Oh? How come?”

Annie is cool and expressionless, clasping her gloved hands together on the table. “You’ve been trying to contact Eren and the rest. And I won’t lie to you, they’ve been avoiding you.”

“I know. Do you know why?” Mikasa is surprised by the eagerness in her own voice. Unusually vulnerable, laying herself out all for Annie to see, she says,  “All I want to know is why. What did I ever do to them?”

Annie shakes her head. “Nothing.”

“Then why—?”

“Eren is not who you think he is.”

A pause.

Mikasa’s the one to shake her head now, as if clearing her thoughts. “I’m sorry?”

“I know you’ve known him all your life,” Annie explains, “but I think what he’s done to you so far isn’t fair.”

Onyx eyes squint slowly. “What do you mean?”

“He’s been…”

“What?”

“I want you to know that the only reason I am going to tell you any of this is because I owe him.”

“Tell me.”

Annie’s hands unravel before her, her fingers tapping slightly on the table, a tap, tap, tap, sound echoing off into Mikasa’s head. Ceasing her tapping, she says, “I think it’s been clear from the beginning that you and I aren’t exactly friends, so don’t take this as me being kind to you.”

Mikasa nods once, matching Annie’s cool expression. “Understood.”

She begins. “Eren’s… He’s got things he isn’t telling you.”

“Like what?”

“That’s for him to say, but I just don’t agree with what he’s done to you so far.”

“What has he done?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“He got you a spot in this play, got you close to his friends, got you happy again.”

“What?”

“Your spot in this play, your new friends, your life recently—it’s all been him.” 

“How do you know?”

Annie sighs. It’s a long, deflating sound. A tired one. Then she begins, “When I met Eren, I was homeless. My father kicked me out after beating me. Eren took me in. I lived with him. He beat the shit out of my dad when he found out what he did to me. I hated him for it. But I realized why I hated him—it was because he had the courage to do what I couldn’t. I’ve admired him ever since.”

Mikasa is silent. She studies the presence before her, watches the way Annie sighs again, clears her throat.

“I know Eren better than anyone,” she says. “He did all of those good deeds because… well, because he just wants you to be happy. It’s kind of shitty, but that’s how he is. He’s just good. Too good of a damn person.”

Mikasa blinks, her heart sinking. “So everyone became my friend out of pity? I got the role because of his connections? That’s it?”

“Yes.” Annie smiles. Her version of a smile is a small and coy one, one that hardly seems to be genuine at all. “I don’t agree with anything he’s done, and I think he’s hurting himself in the end through all of it. This is the only reason I am telling you any of this. I think you should know the truth.”

“I need to find him,” Mikasa says, gathering her things.

Annie nods curtly. “You do. You need the truth. He needs to tell you.”

Mikasa nearly implores. “Where can I find him?”

“He is home now. I know that much.”

“I have to go.”

And that’s it. It’s that simple. With that, Mikasa jumps to her feet, slips on her coat, and turns to leave. Before departing, however, she stops, inhales, says, “Hey.”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

And Annie doesn’t answer—she just nods. She just nods.

**—o—**

_ Bang, bang, bang! _

“Eren?”

_ Bang, bang, bang! _

“Eren!”

Gloved fists rap fervently on the front door of his apartment building for what feels like forever, the tip of Mikasa’s finger pressing on the buzzers by the frame, all to no avail. Nobody answers. There is no sound save for the quiet crackling of the melting snow around her, the banging of her fists upon the door.

She bangs again.

_ Bang, bang, bang! _

Nothing.

“Screw it,” she huffs, making her way around the building. On the one side of a large brick wall, she finds Hitch’s apartment window, a ladder leading up to her small balcony. And without a thought, Mikasa jumps, clasps her hands on one of the handles, and climbs up.

It all happens so quickly, yet so slowly—in a trance, the foggy spectacle of her life blurring before her. She barely registers her hands prying the window open and crawling inside only to underestimate her footing and tumble into Hitch’s apartment with a loud crash.

“Ow,” she breathes, rubbing her knee. It hurts. But before she can gauge the damage, contemplate just what the hell she thinks she’s doing, Hitch is scrambling to her aid.

“Mikasa!” she shouts, her eyes flared wide open. “What in the world—?”

“I need to see Eren,” she pants, struggling to her feet. Her leggings are torn at the knees, she looks like a mess. She knows this, and yet she has the audacity to proclaim, “I need you to show me to him. Now.”

“Are you insane!?” Hitch exclaims, but before she can finish her banter, Mikasa is traipsing through her apartment to the front door.

“I know you’ve all been ignoring me,” she huffs, stopping to turn and face Hitch before leaving, “But I will not go down without a fight.”

“Mikasa, stop!”

She does. Asks, “Why?”

“Please, give Eren his space.”

“No.”

“Mik—!”

The door slams shut behind her, and with adrenaline pumping all the way up to her ears, she can hear her own heartbeat, how it matches the pounds she unleashes on Eren’s door.

It is not long before he answers.

Seeing him before her again is a shock. He looks smaller, thinner, like time has wrung the life out of him. Mikasa wonders when was the last time she saw him, how long ago it was that he seems to have changed so much. His eyes are their old vibrant selves when they glow at her presence, scouring her face to whisper, “Mikasa?”

“Yes,” she breathes heavily, steadying her heaving chest. “I need to speak to you.”

“I can’t right now.”

“You don’t think I know what you’re doing? Let me in.”

“No.”

“Eren, I—”

“You’re bleeding.”

Everything freezes. She blinks rapidly as if there were flakes of dust in her eyes.

“What?”

“What have you done?” Eren exclaims, scowling down at her legs. “You’re bleeding!”

Dumbly, Mikasa gazes down at her knee to find a rivulet of crimson staining the tear in her leggings.

“Oh.”

Eren seems visibly upset as he grasps her hand and leads her inside into his home. The smell of his apartment bombards her senses, rendering her useless. He leads her to the couch, orders her so sit down, then disappears into the kitchen in search of a first-aid kit.

As she waits, the depth of her stupidity hits her. Just what in the world does she think she’s doing? She’d been led here in a state of panic, and now all that spurred her on dwindles away, leaving behind only this scared, vulnerable feeling. 

What’s happening to her?

Before she can contemplate her pitiful state any further, Eren appears. He crouches down before her and, without a word of warning, tears her legging open. It rips loudly, and Mikasa gasps, jumping in her seat but he holds her still by her thigh. His fingers dent her flesh, and he holds her still as he presses a cloth doused in antibacterial solution to her wound.

It stings. Mikasa hisses, parting her lips to speak but Eren’s tightening grip on her thigh silences her. 

She’s never seen him like this. He seems beyond mad, glowering at her knee as he cleans and treats it. She studies the ridges of his face, the bones, the curves and outlines. And she sees a stranger. Sees her old friend. All at once, he is everything and nothing.

When he’s done some minutes later, her knee is wrapped with white gauze, held tight so that she can hardly move her leg. Despite his strong grip, he is rather gentle as he releases her thigh, and Mikasa eyes the way his hand is large enough to hold the entirety of it, how small she seems compared to him.

Clearing her throat, she thanks him.

Eren sighs.

“You’ve done something very stupid,” he tells her, his voice only a fraction of what it had been before. He doesn’t seem angry anymore. This time, he looks sad. Just sad.

“I needed to see you,” is all Mikasa can think to say. And he lifts his gaze to her face, studies her for a moment.

Silence.

They sit still, so still Mikasa feels herself breathing. She can smell him, smell ancient friendly Eren, and the scent completely contradicts his demeanor. It’s warm and homey, a smell she wants to submerge herself into, close her eyes and _ feel _ . But his expression grows distant. He shakes his head, breaking their trance, and rises to his feet, walking away from her.

“I can’t see you anymore, Mikasa.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t.”

“I don’t understand,” she says, trying to rise to her feet, but she merely sinks into the couch further. “You come into my life, you change everything, and you expect me to be okay with it? With you just walking away?”

Eren’s gaze is deep and blue, pouring over her. “Why are you fighting so much? Just let it go. Let me go.”

Mikasa answers sternly. “No.”

Eren shakes his head, scoffing. “God, you’re so stubborn.”

“I just need to know, Eren. What’s given you the right to do what you’ve done?”

“What?”

“Why did you make your friends befriend me? Why did you get Historia to let me be in this play? I know it’s all been you, Eren. Or hasn’t it?”

He halts, jams his hands into his pockets. “It’s been me.”

Mikasa’s voice is a whisper. “How dare you?”

“Are you serious?” He laughs. “Do you have any idea how pitiful you were when I first ran into you? I’d never seen you so depressed in my life!”

“I’m not some little project for you to build and fix and create, Eren.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Then why did you do it? Do you think I enjoy being pitied like that? I could’ve done all of this on my own.”

“Really, Mikasa? Then why didn’t you?”

She groans softly, struggling to her feet. Eren moves to help her, his demeanor braking for a fraction of a second. But then she speaks again, and his defensive stance returns.

“You can’t just go around fixing people, Eren. That’s not how it works.”

Cruelly, slowly, he smiles. “How does it work, then? Huh? You’re telling me you’d rather be engaged to some rich guy that doesn’t give you the time of day and call that a life? That’s fucking sad, Mikasa.”

“Don’t curse at me.”

“Fuck.”

“Eren.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“You’re so immature!”

He laughs. She glowers. He says, “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot I need to be gentle around you. Gentle and sweet and kind because poor little fragile Mikasa can’t stand the heat.”

“Because you’re any better?” she guffaws, her cheeks tinted red with rage. “How do you think I feel knowing my life has been constructed by you? You can’t just lie to someone like that!”

“I helped you!”

“You lied!”

“Oh, my fucking God.”

“Why, Eren? Why did you do it?”

He holds an arm up to the door. “Just go.”

“Why did you lie?” she persists, growing angrier. “Why did you do this? Tell me why!”

And then everything stops.

Everything.

Because he kisses her.

And her gasp is lost between their lips when they crash together. It’s clumsy and messy and his breath is hot against her mouth. The world stops and hangs by its hinges for the milliseconds his lips are locked with hers, and a fire she does not recognize sizzles all the way up to the top of her head from her toes. It disrupts the sky, quakes within her bones so that she shivers, tumbles, falls.

He breaks away. Grips her stunned shoulders, and raps, “That’s why.” 

Shocked, Mikasa parts her mouth open. Useless, it hangs ajar.

He shakes her. Her head bobbles like a doll’s.

“Do you understand? That’s why.”

Eren’s eyes flicker with rage—and for a moment, they are strangers, not the circular traces of the sun Mikasa is so familiar with, but two burning spherules that burst to flames. His anger fuels hers, and the spot on her lips where he had kissed her burns like a scolding disease, plagued by the intruding touch of a man that she shouldn’t even be with.

Shouldn’t, shouldn’t. So many shouldn'ts come with Eren, and they somersault into the pristine, white spaces she’s scoured clean within herself, dirtying her with their passionate, colorful paws.

She hates him.

For a second, as he scowls at her, she thinks he hates her too.

Everything went wrong the second she allowed him back into her life. All was fine, and then he came. She hates how much she likes being with him, hates how he carries both her future and her past, hates what he is to her, hates whatever she is to him. Hate, hate, hate. A raw, snarling emotion she is so careful not to ever feel, but with Eren, everything is ratcheted up to the extremes. She doesn’t dislike him, dislike this. She  _ hates _ .

So she kisses him.

Her lips tumble into his, so clumsily and fervidly that their teeth clack. A second, two, then she pulls back to realize what has happened, what she has done, his expression screaming not anger, but vulnerability and surprise. He isn’t a man who garners any of her hatred, only the whimsical, tender Eren that she knows. That she wants. And before breaths can crawl back into her mouth, before words of apology can even develop, Eren grabs her face and pulls her to him, like a tidal wave crashing to the shore, his lips on hers bring about destruction.

But he tastes so sweet. Mikasa doesn’t realize that she’s up on her tippy-toes, that her arms have thrown themselves around his neck, that her body feels so small when it’s pressed this close to his, because all that rules her is the desire to breathe, and he is her oxygen. Longing doesn’t describe it. When her tongue slips into his mouth and he welcomes the intruder, sliding his hands down the slender slope of her back all the way down to her ass, they contract, and he gropes her, and her moan is lost between them, cast off into his mouth. Her feet hardly hold her up, and just when she thinks she’s falling, he lifts her up. Her legs around his waist. Her back to the wall. She melts, melts, oozes down until they’re nothing but liquid pooling on the floor in a puddle of broken, breathless hunger.

He nips her neck, her throat, her shoulders and, sighing, she pulls on the straps of her own clothing, so that they’re bare and he hurts her better, hurts her more, a sinister vial she’s willing to bleed into. But he doesn’t. He’s gentle. Even now, he’s gentle. It irks her. It irritates her to no end. She parts her lips to protest, but then he’s coming back down on her, hailing like balls of fire. She catches flames.

Her fingers curl into his shirt. Off. Off. She needs it off of him. Closer. Closer. God, she needs him closer. His chest is warm against her hands, against the tops of her breasts, the stuttering beats of her chest. They’re tumbling on the floor and he’s on top of her, his back littered with the faint marks of her pressing fingers, the lines her nails dragging down his spine. He wrestles his shirt off his neck and Mikasa sighs at the sight of him, tracing the lines of his scars, the ripples of his muscles, the shape of him. And then his lips are on her again, starved, groaning into her mouth when she parts her legs and he rucks into her, grinding his arousal against her core.

She gasps.

Breaks.

Splintering in his palms, she claws at his flesh, bites back her mewls as her cheeks flush and his hand slithers between them, pressing hard between her legs. She breathes to utter his name but he’s gone, lost, ripped away from her lips. Too far.

And then in an instant, he is everywhere, marking her neck, gripping her, lifting her hips so he bucks into her harder, and Mikasa can’t control her noises, her mind reeling, seething with nothing but him, him, him.

“Eren,” she whispers his name, declares it, his breath at her neck, hands in her hair, tugging back so that she arches, stretches wider. Her eyes roll back and she shivers, helpless under his weight, his force, withering, so willing. It’s when her eyes glaze over and she slithers a hand between them and down his jeans that his hands rush to stop her.

“Wait,” he pants.

Like a vase shattering on the ground, Mikasa snaps back into reality.

“Wait, wait,” Eren whispers, gripping her wrist firmly. “No,” he tells her. “No, Mikasa, we can’t.”

And she stops.

And she breathes. 

And she realizes what has happened.

Inch by inch, her body grows cold. Frigid. Lost. She has deserted herself, wounded her own honor, and the devastation of what has just occurred washes over her in one strong swoop, submerging her underwater.

She’s drowning.

Eren gasps.

“What have we done?” he asks himself. Asks her. 

What have they done?

He recoils like a flake of bark in the fire. Draws away from her. Draws so far away. So far away. Mikasa’s so cold she shivers. So cold she cries. So cold she scrambles for warmth, sits and gathers herself and fixes the straps of her leotard back over her shoulders.

She does not look at him.

She does not spare Eren a single glance as she collects her things, rises, and leaves him.

And as the door bangs shut, Eren knows that he has—once again—hurt her. 

No, not that.

Killed her.

And he hates himself. Hates himself. 

_ Hates. _

**—o—**

In the shower, she scrapes herself raw, and even then she cannot wash away the remnants of him. They latch onto her skin, haunting her. And she’s still cold. And she’s still shivering. And flashbacks shoot through her mind, flashes of him, her, what they did, how they broke and tore and stained one another.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes into the air. 

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for existing.

I’m sorry for being me.

I’m so sorry.

And when she’s in bed and Jean turns in his sleep to throw an arm around her, she vows to never—never, never, never—see Eren or his friends again.

Curse him, she thinks, as tears pool in her eyes but dry up before spilling.

Curse him.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy moly what a chapter. I don't even know what to say. Just, this was a rollercoaster to write, I can't even imagine what it must've been like to read it. Once again, thank you for your donations to my ko-fi and your kudos/comments, they mean the world! Until next time!


	28. Love's Tragic Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t lying when I said things were about to get really ugly.

Senior year of Eren’s high school education was when Grisha Jaeger had enough. Had enough of staring into his son’s eyes and seeing Carla. Of hearing his laugh and hearing her voice. Of seeing his face and catching glimpses of a ghost that no longer resided in his world. The further along the years rolled on by, the older his son got, the more he drifted away from him. Alas, he was nothing but a strand of smoke, evaporating into the air until he vanished.

Grisha Jaeger vanished.

He vanished from his son’s life, left  him behind with nothing to console him. No letter, no ceremony, simply his disappearance act of one second being there, the next—gone. He’d left him much in the same way that Carla did. Gradually, then all at once. Slowly, then all too suddenly. 

Eren was eighteen, so he was old enough to take care of himself. Old enough not to cry when the third day came and Daddy was still gone. And he wondered. Wondered why. Wondered what he did to ever provoke this. Was it his fights in school? His suspensions? And the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. People always leave. People are  _ designed _ to leave him. Eren was born to be alone.

“It’s not your fault,” Mikasa told him one morning, when his fists coiled with betrayal and rage, quaking with the anger that coursed through his veins. Her soft voice was like a knife cutting into him, carving her words in runes on his body. He was so vulnerable, he wore everything outside of him, bore his scars for the world to see. And his girlfriend caught his tears when they poured from his eyes, down his cheeks, on his chin, onto the floor. Because his house was no longer a home. It was a box, a carcass that held echoes, that reverberated with the laughter of a mother, a father, a little boy. The phantoms of a family that could be. That should be.

Mikasa kissed the moisture on his cheeks, the raw salt of his pain. And she said, “Come live with me. Mama and Papa are working things out. They might call off the divorce.”

“No,” Eren replied, sniffling, wiping his shirt sleeve on his nose. Because he was a wrecker, a pariah, a disease. “If I live with you, I’ll ruin your family.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at me,” he cried. “I ruined mine.”

And all Mikasa could do was hold him. Just hold him. And as she did, Eren buried his nose into her hair, smelled that sweetness of hers and asked, “Miki. Please. Never leave me.”

“I promise,” the girl whispered. “For as long as I live.”

**—o—**

Armin truly loved the beach.

Even though it was still cold out, he loved going to any large body of water and fawning over all its mysteries and depths. The ocean held stories. It had life. A lover. And he knew, because he saw the way it toiled to break away from the shore, always coming back to caress it, only to retrieve with whispered promises of its return. 

He loved it. He loved the way the sun reigned over its waves, conjuring crystalline speckles of light on the water’s surface, little diamonds that scattered when they broke over the sand. He was contemplating its beauty on the day that he declared, “I’m getting surgery.”

Eren and Mikasa gazed at him. Their expressions were ambiguous. He continued.

“They think they can take out my tumor; get my hearing back.”

“But it’s in your ear,” Mikasa interrupted him. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“It is.”

“Then why go through with it?” Eren was the one to ask.

“Because,” Armin smiled. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed the saline in the air, and then deep blue sea marbles slid open again, read the lips of his friends, their love, their worry, and replied, “I’ve got nothing to lose at this point.”

Mikasa’s lips parted only to freeze. Eren’s were pursed shut, forming a steady line that did not waver. 

“They only gave me months to live,” Armin added, the breeze throwing his flaxen hair over his eyes. “So why not just… Do it?” 

“But what if you don’t survive?” Mikasa’s eyes were squinted, matching Eren’s own fixed look. “This surgery sounds incredibly dangerous.”

Armin smiled again. “More dangerous than cancer?”

His friends were silent.

“I didn’t think so.”

And he cast his gaze to the sea. He did not catch Eren’s words when they left his mouth, not until he seized his sleeve, inquiring for his attention.

“Armin,” he could almost hear his voice, imagine it. “When’s the surgery?”

“In a month.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Hardly.”

“Well, then.” Eren’s bright eyes dimmed slightly, a concentrated look on his face. “Then we’re going with you.”

Armin nodded.

I’m worried, he did not hear Mikasa say.

Don’t be, he missed out on Eren’s response.

Because he’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. You’ll see.

**—o—**

Love is a very complicated thing.

It’s not a feeling, it’s a choice, Mama told her. Mikasa’s brows came together in a frown, a puzzled look etched on her face. And she thought of her own feelings for Eren, for Armin. They were feelings, surely. Were they not? They were feelings because they were what seared and pummeled in her heart’s every beat, what breathed fire into her soul and elevated her. Could a mere choice do that? No. Love was more magical than that.

But Mama was adamant. Love was far more complex. Because when feelings fade, what is left? Choices, she told her daughter. Choices. And she was choosing to give Papa a second chance. Not to forget he ever cheated on her, but to forgive him. That was her choice. That was her way of loving him.

And so Mama chose to accompany Papa to Mikasa’s final dance recital.

This was it. This was the dance before she went off to college. She’d gotten accepted at a prestigious liberal arts school only a town away, and although she knew she intended to pursue dancing for as long as her limbs could carry her, something else needed to pay the bills. And so she was going to study biology, something she felt she could excel at with Armin’s help.

Why did she want to study the nature of the world?

Because there was a magic that coursed through it, an affluent flow that poured from her lover’s eyes and through to her. Because it was her way of carrying Armin’s legacy, for his own brilliant mind could not attend college—he was too sick. It was her own way of understanding how Eren’s gaze could hold all of existence, how Armin’s mind could harbor the fruits of all knowledge. Because all that—it was love. Not a choice. A feeling. Love.

But she did not oppose Mama attending her dance with Papa. Whatever made them happy, she supposed. And Papa had said he needed to speak to her, probably to ask for her forgiveness for the billionth time. I’m working things out with your mother, he’d say. Aren’t you proud?

Aren’t you happy?

No, Mikasa felt the answer deep in her core. No. Because your choice was to ruin this family, to pursue your whimsical impulses instead of honoring what you’d build on such a strong foundation. Because by doing that, you abandoned me. Abandoned Mama. Your family. How could you?

How could Grisha?

And then Mikasa finally understood what Mama meant.

Maybe love was a choice after all.

**—o—**

The night of the recital finally arrived, and Eren waited patiently backstage with a bouquet of purple flowers. He waited until a shadow with long black hair appeared. His heart jumped a little, then settled back in his chest when he recognized who it belonged to.

“Mrs. Ackerman.”

“Eren,” Mikasa’s mother smiled. “You’ve gotten so big. You’re so handsome, look at you.”

He blushed at her compliment, her tone and posture as lithe and graceful as ever. She was like an angel, and Eren thought of how much she contrasted his own mother. Mom was all curse words and old books and beer and big smiles and tattoos. Mrs. Ackerman was all rigid spine and thin lips and pointy nose and calm aura. She was like a queen. Everything about her was gentle and regal. 

Mikasa was lost to them somewhere onstage, so her mother took this moment to tell him, “She loves you, you know. My daughter.”

Eren smiled warmly. “I know.”

“I feel… I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I feel I may not be in her life for much longer.”

Eren stared deep into Mrs. Ackerman’s eyes. What could she mean? He chuckled nervously. Surely, she was joking.

“Don’t say that,” he said, gripping the flowers tightly. His hands were trembling. He did not know why.

“I have to go collect Mikasa’s father,” she said, her gaze cast elsewhere. She seemed… sad. Eren could not understand why for the life of him. 

“Okay,” he said, staring down at the petals nestled against his chest. They were rich and vibrant, happy with color. To cheer her up, he extended them out to Mrs. Ackerman, grinned, and said, “Here. For you.”

“What?” The woman’s thin, perfectly groomed eyebrows shot upwards. “For me?”

“Yes,” Eren smiled brighter.

Then, without a word, she took the bouquet from his hands, smiled faintly, and told him, “Take care of her. For me.”

“Always,” Eren promised. Always.

And as she walked away, he studied her, held on to her presence until it was nothing but a small dot in the distance. She disappeared, along with the happy purple flowers. And he was so unaware, so unaware, of their coming fate. They would rain, rain from the sky like shards of burning paper, and fall onto a fire, a mighty flame, a monster of crumpled metal and reeling tires that would consume them. Consume everything. Everything. 

And they would blow up.

Explode.

After that—silence.

Just silence.

The world would go so tragically still.

**—o—**

Mikasa knew what happened before the news even reached her ears.

She knew what happened because when her tired body heaved and heaved and heaved and heaved and her eyes searched and searched and searched and searched and they found no sign of Mama or Papa not a trace not a glimpse not a scrap of them she knew she knew she knew it in her soul because they were there oh god they were there they were supposed to be there but they weren’t and she was shocked too shocked to feel to think to process anything to process—

They’re dead.

Mama.

Papa.

Dead.

Her childhood her life her world all shattered. 

BOOM. 

GONE.

AND WHY? HOW? WHAT DID SHE EVER DO FOR THIS TO HAPPEN KAMI WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO HER WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO THEM GOD JUST ANSWER HER TELL HER JUST TELL HER WHY DON’T YOU SEE SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND YOU OR LOVE YOU OR TRUST YOU ANYMORE GOD YOU RUINED HER YOU ABANDONED HER YOU TRICKED HER INTO BELIEVING IN YOU AND FOR WHAT FOR WHAT TO HURT HER YOU—

“Mikasa!”

Gasping, gasping, she stopped.

Her fists were trapped in Eren’s grip, trembling. They bled. They ached. They wanted to keep pushing, to keep punching, to keep fighting. But what was the point? Her world was stripped from her, taken from her. Eren wrapped his arms around her, squeezed her tight, and her gaze went to Armin, to the hospital’s walls, the ceiling, and she asked the sky.

Why?

It was then that she started sobbing. 

Sobbing so strongly, so uncontrollably, she could feel her soul physically shatter. She was glad Armin couldn’t hear her screams, but he bore witness to the way she convulsed with every jerk and wail and cry her body emitted, all within the arms of a weeping Eren.

How could the world be so fragile?

How could the ground be so weak as to shatter below her?

Everything changed. Everything. Nothing was to be the same again, for her life had been combed free of all its blessings, all its light. Smothered in darkness, she withered, she shrunk, until she was nothing but a fragment of who she used to be. How could she ever breathe again? Smile again? Feel again? With the death of her parents, came the death of her soul.

Slowly, slowly, she conjured the strength to speak again. This wasn’t until she needed to deliver her parents’ eulogy at their funeral before hundreds of eyes. And it was funny, so funny, how her voice did not crack—not once. Not even when tears spilled from her eyes and blurred her vision, sucking her into a vortex of loss and pain. She’d thought that with the death of Carla and Grisha’s disappearance, she’d felt the world’s greatest pains. How little she knew. How little she knew. There weren’t enough words, enough languages in the world to convey her sorrow.

If only Mama and Papa had waited one more second, one more millisecond, they would’ve gotten into the car later, turned on the ignition later, coursed into the highway later, just a millisecond later, and missed that lucid driver, missed that collision, that bang of gasoline and exhaust, of fire and winter’s pallid ice. They would’ve missed it and been okay. Been here. Like they’re meant to be.

Mikasa felt she was a ghost, an empty shell that no longer carried a spirit, so that when Eren pulled her aside after the funeral and asked her if she was cold, she could not nod, could not respond, could not do anything.

“Here,” he whispered, wrapping the crimson scarf he was wearing around her thin neck. The fabric was soft and smelled of him, of home, a veil of warmth that secluded her from the rest of the world. She closed her eyes and felt it, pinched the fabric between her fingers and finally parted her lips to speak.

“Isn’t this Carla’s scarf?” she asked him, mildly shocked by the sound of her own voice. She felt so unreal, hearing her own tangible noises felt odd, like a sort of betrayal. Eren only stared at her.

“It was,” he answered finally. “It’s yours now.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

Silence. Nothing but the distant cries of crows and the faint crackling of melting snow. Her parents were twenty feet below it, buried under a thick sheet of ice. They didn’t belong there. Her heart ached at the thought.

Mikasa hated snow.

It was cruel, cold, unforgiving. It’s what made the tires skid and the cars clash and twist and turn and flip and burn. It’s what made Papa’s friendly eyes disappear from the world forever, Mama’s calm voice no longer pierce the air she breathed. Mikasa collapsed into Eren, weeping into her scarf silently as he held her, said nothing, for there was nothing more to say.

“Come live with me,” he said after a long while, shattering the silence with a breathy sigh. “Live with me and Armin, Mikasa.”

She moved only to look into his eyes. “What?”

“Come live with us,” he told her, begged her. “Grandpa Arlert is giving us his old house. We’re moving in soon. There’s an extra room, Miki. A room just for you.” 

“A room?” she peeped, her voice barely leaving her. “In Grandpa Arlert’s home?”

“Yes,” Eren nodded. “Listen to me, Miki. I promise I will always protect you. You have me, a place to go. Come with me. I’m here.” 

“But—”

“Mikasa. You have me. I’m yours. We’re a home.”

She began to cry again, burying her nose into the scarf coiled around her neck. “Okay,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Okay.”

Eren clasped his arms around her once more, and she thought of how she could stay this way forever, held within the walls of his body, lost inside this sanctuary of a man. Each time she blinked, she saw Mama, Papa, burning behind her eyelids. And breathing, remembering, she promised them she would live her best life—in their name, in their honor. She would make a life with Eren, with Armin, and she would start anew. Because that was love, her love for them.

That became her choice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! This chapter, as painful as it is, paves the path for the upcoming past chapter, and I regret to say that we're almost at the end with these. I've already begun to write the next chapter, all thanks to your donations and unwavering support. Seriously, thank you. You guys helped me pay for gas this month, and I can't thank you enough for that. Until next time!


	29. And Then Fate Pulled Us Back Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this update is so close to the last one, but I spewed this out of me in hours and I just had to share! A huge thank you to tumblr users kaekiro and askladarmin for betaing this chapter! Y'all gave me the courage to post. Enjoy!

Mikasa quit.

She quit the ballet. She quit Eren. She quit his friends. She quit. And she did it slowly, trickling out their presence in her life, pouring herself through a funnel so that all that was left was this blank slate, this new woman. By quitting, she redefined herself, renamed herself, decided who she is.

So, she spends her days cleaning.

Trapped within the pristine walls of her apartment, it’s as if Eren never even happened to her at all. She scours and scrubs and wipes all the remnants of him, decorating her home with small adornments that declare _ this is me, this is me, I define me.  _

She doesn’t need him. 

Over and over again, she says this to herself. Even when Jean is gone all day and she’s left alone to clean, she doesn’t need him. Even as she stares at the ceiling from the center of her gigantic empty bed, she doesn’t need him. Even though her limbs ache to move and she no longer calls herself a dancer, she doesn’t need him. She doesn’t need him. She reminds herself over and over and over again: She doesn’t need him.

Maybe that way she’ll believe it.

It’s not long before Jean picks up on her odd behavior. She’s been avoiding him too. Partly, because she doesn't know how to face him, not after tasting Eren, after feeling Eren, after engraving him deep within her skin. Because she bears the markings of his fervor, love bites that litter her neck and chest—bruises that sear, scar her.

The days dribble on by, slow and monotonous.The sun has long since set on the night that Jean arrives home drunk out of his mind, with his libido shooting through the roof and a hunger spilling from his lips that Mikasa can’t bring herself to fully satisfy.

When his hands find her flesh, she nearly flinches. Any physical contact reminds her, reeks of Eren. Eren. She closes her eyes, burns his name from her mind so that it’s nothing but ashes.

“‘Kasa,” her fiance murmurs, burying his nose into the crook of her neck sloppily. The thick wool of her turtleneck coils around her tainted skin, hides it from his seeking mouth. He finds a sliver of her, bites it, and Mikasa doesn’t have it in her to fight, to battle against the memories that smolder from within her.

“Jean,” she whispers, shedding part of her clothes. Because if they have sex when he’s drunk, she can blame the love bites on him tomorrow. She can lie. Lie. This is her now. A Liar.

And so they do. And her head reels as he marks her, sucks on her expanses and pins her to the bed. She’s so far away, worlds and worlds away from him. Even as she moans. Even as she writhes and withers below him. Even as he’s buried deep inside her, she’s so far gone, so barren. And she thinks she can sense his eyes piercing through her in the darkness, poring over every tiny slither of bare skin, staring into all her nakedness, all her ugliness.

Jiji meows some hours later, a noise that’s accompanied only by Jean’s steady snores. Mikasa lies on the bed, still naked, and buries her fingers between her legs. Her mind goes back to that forsaken place, and she smells the green, the blue, the gold, the forbidden colors that smother her. She pants softly, closing her eyes and feels her own arousal, a ritual she’s practiced for some time to console herself. Feeling more pleasure than she did moments ago, she bites her lip, breathes a name that doesn’t belong to the man snoring beside her.

Eren.

She’s failed yet again, gone back to the thought of him to ease her own pain. She cleans and cleans only to dirty herself again, day after day. Tonight seems to be no different.

But it’s okay, she tells herself. There’s always tomorrow.

**—o—**

The following day arrives, and Eren’s routine is the same. Always the same.

He hardly leaves his home anymore. There’s no point. He just works, eats, sleeps, and ignores the worried eyes that watch him, that ask him if he’s okay.

He’s not okay.

He can’t even pretend that he is anymore.

He’s not okay because he lost her again. Lost her forever. He’s not okay because he yearns to touch her, to smell her, to feel her again. So he pretends. When he’s all alone in his unlit bedroom, he pretends. He sees her legs splayed apart on top of him, her little gasp when she slides him into her, and he marvels at every sway and jerk and bounce as his hand moves faster and faster and faster, faltering only when he’s reached his peak.

It’s a dirty feeling, always, when he gazes down, only to find no trace of her. He’s all alone, so he decides not to be anymore. Not tonight. He cleans himself and reaches for his coat, his boots tumbling slightly in the darkness. As he leaves for the bar, something heavy settles in his stomach, a daunting pang. And as he walks, he sees her everywhere, feels her everywhere. This time, he does not bother to shut her out.

For that, there’s always tomorrow.

**—o—**

Dawn is only moments away when Mikasa’s eyes slide open, weary and worn. She turns her head to Jean only to find nothing, feels for him to see that his side of the bed has gone cold. She’s still nude when she rises to find her phone and dials his number, holding the device to her ear. It rings and rings but there’s never an answer. She gives up after the third try, and decides not to go back to bed until he returns.

She still smells of sex. 

So she traipses over to the bathroom, starts a bath, and gazes at her own reflection in the mirror. She’s gotten thinner. Gauntly, almost. Eren’s hickeys fade beneath a mirage of new ones, all scattered across her neck and chest, little faint spots that draw out shameful maps on her surfaces.

She gently dips her body into the hot soup and marinates for what feels like hours. It must’ve been only minutes, for the sun has not yet moved in the sky. It has to be around five o’clock in the morning. A new day has officially come.

Today, she will succeed. Today, she will completely rid herself of Eren.

Slowly, her head sinks into the water, until the back of her skull settles against the bottom of the tub, her long black hair swaying around her like seaweed.

She holds her breath.

She holds it for so long that her heartbeats quicken, desperate for oxygen. But even then, she does not resurface. Even then, she holds still.

_ Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. _

She feels each and every pound within her, lets them lull her almost to a state of slumber. She could drown here. It wouldn’t matter. Her mind goes blank, finally still, and she rejoices at the calm within her, at this glimpse of peace.

But then her heart stops.

Stings.

Her eyes flare open, the water shattering as she jerks upwards, gasping and coughing and scrambling for breath. She holds her legs close to her body, shivering, covered in a sheen of bath water and sweat. Her hair is plastered to her neck and forehead, to her heaving chest.

Something’s gone terribly wrong. And she knows, and she knows. Immediately, she knows.

It’s Eren.

**—o—**

He does not realize that it’s Jean until he feels his fist crash against his jaw.

Eren’s drunk. Drunk enough to stagger aggressively as he crumbles to his knees, onto the crummy ground of the bar’s back alley, and struggles to his feet. When he’s standing again, he sways, his jaw wailing with pain, pounding. 

He turns. 

Smiles.

“Hey, Jean.”

Another punch. It splits his lip.

Eren staggers again, nearly falling, spitting blood. He grunts, stands slowly. The night sky cracks with a sliver of dawn, casting enough light onto the two of them so that he can see the rage in Jean’s eyes clearly.

“You fucking gnat,” Jean hisses, balls of his spit falling onto Eren’s face. “You fucking shit, I can’t get rid of you.”

“Mikasa?” Eren slurs. Jean flinches violently at the sound of her name. “What?” He smiles again, blood staining his teeth. “Is she still moaning my name while you fuck her?”

The air escapes his lungs.

Jean punches him in the stomach, a hard blow that makes him keel over. Eren gasps, wheezes, holds his aching gut.

“How dare you?” Jean sounds like he’s about to cry. “How could you do this to us?”

Eren’s in too much pain to answer. He groans, fighting to get back on his feet.

“We’re getting married,” Jean continues, his voice cracking. “We’re getting married and you sleep with her?”

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Eren barely manages.

Jean nearly explodes. “Liar!” He kicks him over onto his back, Eren gasping for breath, falling helplessly. “I saw them, those hickeys! They’re from you!”

Eren pants, surrendering fully. There’s a moment where their heaving is the only noise around them, until Jean forces Eren up by the collar of his coat, grunting as he carries him up to his feet.

“Fight back,” he raps, the two of them breathing heavily. Jean’s practically carrying Eren, holding him up so close the tip of his nose nearly grazes his cheek. “Fight back, Eren.”

“No,” he whispers, tears welling up in his eyes. He coughs, gripping Jean’s wrists. “I can’t.”

“Is it because of Mikasa?”

“Yes,” he cries pitifully. “I can’t. I love her.”

Jean cries, too. He begs, “Please, don’t make me do this.”

“I love her,” Eren says softly, blood spilling from his lower lip. “I love her.” 

And then the world spins. 

It reels as Eren falls to his side, a hail of fists clashing against him. He bleeds, aches, capitulates. Wheezing through his gritted teeth, he bears all of it, until he’s left to gaze up helplessly at the streak of light that breaks the sky. He thinks of how beautiful it is, how effortless, until the hailing stops, and heeled boots run off into the distance, leaving him behind to blink skyward in a pool of his own blood, all alone, deserted, counting his breaths as he steadily loses consciousness. 

She’s the last thing he sees before closing his eyes.

**—o—**

Mikasa’s hair is still damp when Jean makes it back home. It sits as a wet mop around her head, black tendrils that reach all the way to her back, its ends grazing the arms she crosses over her chest. She’s barren, her face free of any makeup, her body clad in winter attire. She looks about ready to leave, her purse only inches away, carrying her belongings. She smells like soap and shampoo, not perfume. Her look, her aura, it’s all strange and unusual to Jean, as he’s never seen her this way before.

Never seen her mad.

“Jean,” she says as soon as she sees him. “Please,” her voice is soft but stern, laden with something heavy. “Sit.”

He does.

She eyes the blood on his fists, grits her teeth but says nothing.

“I was—”

“I know where you were,” she interjects, quieting him. “And, frankly, that’s not what I want to talk to you about.” 

Jean rubs his tired eyes, his raw knuckles stinking of blood. “Then what?” he says calmly, stretching his arms out to the sides. “I’m here, ‘Kasa. I’m all yours.”

She is expressionless. Her lips are the only part of her face that move. “I know what you did.”

Jean scoffs. “And do you know why?”

“Enlighten me.”

Laughter. It’s a cruel, breathless sound. 

“Really, Mikasa?”

She nods.

“You really want me to tell you?”

“Sure,” she shrugs. “Why don’t you?”

Jean’s ears burn bright red, his cheeks dusted crimson with anger. He walks closer to her, stands only inches from her face, his breath on her lips when he spits, “You cheated on me.”

Mikasa’s tone is ruthless. “I did.”

Jean feels his heart shatter. His eyes sting with tears. “Why?”

“Jean, I think it’s time I told you the truth.”

“Which is?”

“I love him.”

A startled pause. 

For a moment, Mikasa thinks he will hit her. But he’s not like that, she remembers, not even now. Not even after what he’s done to Eren. Instead, he cries. Raw, fat drops fall from his eyes, his voice cracking with, “What?”

“I love him,” she repeats. “I love Eren. I have loved him all my life.”

“But—”

“You were right, Jean. You were right. He loves me, and I love him. It’s really that simple.”

“How could you do this to me?”

She sighs softly. “I never intended to hurt you.”

“No,” he sobs, clasping his face in his bleeding hands. “I don’t even know you anymore.”

“Well,” Mikasa swallows the lump in her throat. “That makes two of us.”

“Stop,” Jean begs her, seizing her trembling hands. “Please, Mikasa, give me a second chance.”

“Don’t you understand?” she whispers, shaking her head. “I could marry you a thousand times and nothing, absolutely nothing you do could ever make me stop loving him.”

“You’re killing me,” he breathes. “Please, Mikasa.”

“I’m leaving you,” she tells him, jerking her hands free of his grip. She gathers her things and, without a word, goes to leave. Halfway to the door, a tight grip on her upper arm makes her hiss in pain.

“No,” Jean says, holding her arm so tight he nearly cuts out her circulation. He inches closer to her, so close she can smell the alcohol in his breath, the tinge of gin and olives. “You are my wife,” he hisses, with such fervor and possession that it makes Mikasa sick.

She leans in one final time, matching the fire in his eyes. “I am not your fucking wife.”

Jiji jumps when the front door bangs shut, leaving behind crumbling walls that quake with the sobs of a falling man, the echoes of a broken home. And she wonders why she ever tried to convince herself that she belongs there. 

**—o—**

Eren. Eren, wake up.

_ Armin? _

What are you doing? Get up!

_ I can’t.  _

What do you mean? Since when do you turn down a fight?

_ It’s over, Ar. It’s over. _

It’s not over yet.

_ I lost her. _

Says who?

_ Please, come back, little man. Can’t you see I need you? _

Well, you are pretty helpless without me.

_ She hates me. _

She can’t hate you even if she tries.

_ How do you know? _

I know everything, remember?

_ Ah. _

Wake up, Eren. She needs you.

_ I’m hurting her, Armin. I’ve fucked up. _

Stop it. Wake up. You love her, don’t you?

_ So much. _

Then fight for her, Eren. You gotta fight. 

_ Come back, Armin. _

I can’t.

_ Please? _

I can’t, Eren.

_ I can’t wake up. _

You can. I’ll do it with you.

_ Yeah? _

Yeah.

_ You promise? _

I promise. You’re gonna fight for her, Eren. You’re gonna make me proud.

_ Armin…  _

Yes?

_ Thank you. _

Eren, tell me. How are you?

_ Still alive? _

Still alive.

**—o—**

She walks.

Even as snowflakes fall steadily from the sky, plump clouds shrouding the morning sun with their giant shadow, stifling its light. Her tired eyes scroll over the city, absorbing every shape and noise. And it shocks her that she’s alive right now, that she’s functioning after so much devastation. Today will not be the day that she rids herself of Eren, after all. 

She asks herself why she ever even tried.

Her heart hurts. It sits heavy in her chest, carrying all of her remorses, all of her regrets. Carrying the look on Jean’s face when she confessed her truth to him, carrying the way his eyes overflowed and spilled so freely, so raw. Carrying the fact that she got herself into this huge mess, that she doesn’t know how to fix this, how to fix anything.

Useless. So damn useless. 

It’s not long before she realizes where she is. She’s been here countless of times before; her body must’ve carried her here via muscle memory. She looks up. Snowflakes stick to her damp hair, to the tip of her nose, her lips, her eyelashes. She feels their timid busses, gentle reminders that somehow, somehow, everything will be okay.

She sits.

At their bench, Mikasa sits. And she waits. Waits for nothing. Her fingers graze her neck absentmindedly, tracing where Eren’s hickeys end and Jean’s begin, markings she wishes would vanish, disappear so as to let her reclaim her skin, declare it her own again. 

She’s cold.

Her crimson scarf, she wonders where she left it. Her addled mind cannot recollect even that. She hardly knows her own name, her own identity. All she knows is that she hurts, she hurts, and she wants it all to stop, to end forever.

It was on a snowy day like this that she lost Mama and Papa.

That she lost Armin.

And now she’s lost Jean, herself. What’s left? What’s there left to lose now? She laughs ironically at her life, and it is then that her heart skips and her eyes grow wide, for they find a man standing beside her.

It’s Eren.

He found her.

Her eyes brim with tears.

“Hi,” she whispers gently, as if her voice might scare his fragile presence away, send him off with the wind. His face is stained with dried blood and cuts and bruises, a pain he bears with no complaints. She feels the need to console them, assuage his aches. But he says nothing, does nothing. He merely stands.

“Eren,” Mikasa says into the silence, her breath puffing out as smoke. “I’m so sorry.”

He sighs.

“I didn’t know he would do that. I didn’t—”

“It’s so good,” Eren sighs again, closing his eyes. Despite his wounds, he seems relieved. Calm. Happy, even. “It’s so good, Mikasa, to see you again.”

Her visions blurs, the lump in her throat tightening. “Ditto.”

She dries her tears as he sits beside her, groaning softly at all of his body’s soreness. She feels the need to hold him close, to feel his heartbeat, his breath, remind herself that he’s here, that he’s okay, he’s okay. She gazes at the scarf he has around his neck, the only article of clothing not tattered and stained with his blood. It’s her scarf. He has it.

“I left him,” she whispers. “I left him, and I have nowhere to go.”

“Nonsense,” Eren smiles faintly, wincing at the cut on his lip. He uncoils the scarf from his neck and rings it around her own, his eyes boring deeply into her. “Let’s go home,” he tells her, and offers nothing more. No explanation. Nothing. Just: “Let’s go home, Mikasa.”

Her fingers pinch the warm fabric around her neck, and she breathes it in. It smells of him. It smells of home. “Okay,” she tells him, sniffling, eyeing the way the snowflakes stick to his long hair, how they make him seem so gentle despite his presently state. 

She grabs his hand. It’s freezing, crusted with dirt and blood.

And she wants to say she loves him. She wants to say more. But all that escapes her lips is a small smile, a gesture of gratitude she hopes he understands.

“Thank you.”

He merely nods,and Mikasa thinks that perhaps every step she’s ever taken has lead her to this, to this little moment. As they stand, she feels complete. They make their way back to his apartment, two shivering bodies traipsing through the cold. Still in a state of shock, she stares at him the entire time, the only sound thing among the chaos and it’s as if the world aligns around them, and it all makes so much sense. 

She tightens her grip on his hand, never lets go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm practically shaking, the story is almost over, and things are just starting to get super spicy. Thanks once more for your donations to my ko-fi and kudos/reblogs! Have a lovely day/evening and until next time!


	30. Then We All Went to the Outside World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I physically could not bring myself to make this chapter any longer. I tried, I really did, but I think my heart just seriously can’t take it. And with that, good luck.

A life without Mama and Papa and Grisha was difficult to live. The only source of guidance Eren and Mikasa were provided with came from Grandpa Arlert, who welcomed them into his home with open arms. They moved in with Armin as he left off to join a home, leaving the three of them to care for a three-acre space of land, grass, floral walls, and dusty door jambs.

The process of moving in felt like somewhat of a blur. As if in a trance, Eren and Mikasa were led by the mechanical whims of their bodies, ripping wallpaper off the walls and polishing the creaky hardwood floors as Armin stood by watching, sipping lemonade and bobbing his head to the music in his mind. 

Somewhere along that blur, hope happened. Hope. They rebuilt and redecorated their new home in a span of two months, through which all of its new inhabitants grew and flourished. Eren tore down the walls and painted them, the same way he tore down his past and constructed something new. Somewhere along that blur, as Mikasa mopped the newly polished floors, her heart began to feel full again, began to feel again. And it beat with renewed purpose, in a static rhythm that drove her forth. Armin was giddy as ever, and with surgery only some months away, he was the most hopeful of them all.

When they were done, they celebrated. 

Music filled the newly decorated rooms, the vast hallways, every polished corner of their home. Leonard Cohen’s voice permeated through the walls and carried the scent of the freshly baked cookies Mikasa had made, the ones they were all busy munching on as they danced. Armin couldn’t hear anything, but he danced with his imagination, crafting lullabies from the ones his mother sang to him when he was small. Eren grabbed Mikasa’s hand and lifted it high above them, cajoling her to dip below it and turn, all the while giggling with her cheeks dusted pink in the dim light. 

That night, they all slept on the same bed.

Partly, because the floors in Armin’s room weren’t done yet. Mostly, because Mikasa liked to make sure he was breathing at night. Not that his cancer had anything to do with how he slept, but she constantly felt that he would whisk away, disappear from right beside her. Hearing his little snores, she felt peace. 

Eren was awfully quiet.

“Miki,” he said at some point that night, awakening her from a state of half-slumber. 

“Yeah?” Mikasa whispered, turning her head to face the silhouette of his body below the sheets beside her.

“Surgery is coming soon,” he told her. “Aren’t you worried at all?”

“I’m worried sick,” she sighed. “I’m so worried he won’t make it.”

“We should do something,” Eren said after a brief silence. “Something to honor him before the surgery.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask him.”  

“I think I know what he’d love,” the girl whispered into the darkness. “Don’t worry.”

Eren sighed. His breath was dense and sleepless, a tendril of invisible smoke that fell into Mikasa’s mouth with a kiss. He tasted sweet, childish. Of innocence. She held his cheek, deepening their kiss before tearing free to whisper that she loved him. And he knew, he knew. At this point of the night, words were no longer necessary. Shrouded in each other’s arms, they fell asleep like that, with Armin snoring quietly beside them and the moonlight creeping in through a crack in the curtained windows, the night outside chirping and riveting, all of it alive.

**—o—**

Armin had been quiet all that day.

The house was finally done. It had been done for a while now, and its new residents had inhabited it for months, for long enough that the snow melted and  the sun shone with more passion. Spring crept in, and then summer, and then the beginnings of fall began to caress the sky, dusting sunsets with hues of pinks and oranges, denuding the trees and clothing the ground with their shedded leaves. They crumpled underfoot, little cries that rose above a silence Armin could not fathom as he walked beside Mikasa with a blanket wrapped around him to shield him from the cold. His blue eyes cast downward, his gaze was fixed on the ground until he suddenly stopped, Mikasa halting beside him.

She held his shoulder to make him look at her, asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I have a feeling,” he told her, the blanket falling from one of his scrawny shoulders. “I feel like something big is going to happen.”

Mikasa squinted her eyes. “Like what?”

“I’m not sure,” he frowned, his eyebrows scrunched together. “I… I just don’t know.”

The girl sighed. “Well, the surgery is a huge thing.”

“No,” Armin shook his head. “Not that.” 

Silence. It followed and lingered for a large chunk of time, the sibilant wind whispering silent litanies around them. 

Mikasa’s mind wandered. It went to her parents, to their lives, to how they left this world. They would never see her get married, or graduate, or have her own baby. She didn’t want that for Armin. His life was still so fresh, so young, and he harbored dreams that still needed to be fed and lived and accomplished. 

He needed to live.

“Armin,” Mikasa voiced finally, breaking their trance. “Would you like to go to the beach before surgery?”

Blue eyes flared wide. “Yeah?”

“Why not?”

“I would love that!”

Mikasa giggled at his excitement. “Well, then. I’ll tell Eren when he gets back from work.”

So, when he returned, she told him.

Eren was ridding himself of his clothes, about to hop into the shower when she did. He smiled, butt naked, and pulled at her arm to bring her closer.

“Eren,” she said, trying not to stare. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Mikasa opposed, dodging his kisses. “Armin.”

“What about him?”

“He’s here!”

“So?”

“Oh, never mind,” she capitulated, smirking at his grin and delving in to kiss him.

“Miki,” he sighed into her mouth. “Let’s start a family.”

“Now?” she peeped, her eyes wide. “You mean now, Eren?”

“Right now,” he smiled. “Let’s make a baby.”

“God,” Mikasa giggled. “You’re so forward.”

“I’m serious.”

“But we have a family,” she told him, tracing the line of muscle along the center of his chest. “We have Armin, and each other.”

“I know,” Eren said, his blue eyes shining. “But…”

“But what?”

“But I want more.”

More. 

She smiled.  Mikasa smiled, but the gesture alone was not enough to ward off the sudden pang in her heart. Were they even allowed to want more? Ever since her parents’ death, she’d been living on the crumbs of life, satisfied with the scraps of joy she’s been feeling here and there. Would God forgive her if she asked for more than that?

“Let’s do it,” she giggled, pecking Eren on the cheek.

And she laughed, laughed so loudly and so freely when he dove and picked her up in his arms, grunting in the process. Because she felt so brave, so daring, so alive. She asked for more from God, for just another scrap, and promised to ask for forgiveness when the deed was done.

**—o—**

The hours ticked on by in an invisible timeclock, drawing nearer and nearer. They ticked and ticked until the day of the big surgery finally arrived. Even the air was different that morning, even the sun seemed to be shy.

It was a gloomy day, certainly not one to celebrate. Nonetheless, Armin was teeming with excitement. This surgery would either make or break his existence in this world. It would either be the catalyst for more, or the cork that clogged the flow of everything. It would allow more science, more research, more wonders to unveil in his brilliant mind, or stop everything.

Armin knew there was a chance that he could die. But he wasn’t scared. After living with an illness for so long, he wasn’t scared of anything. 

Eren decided to drive. Mikasa told him she’d be the designated passenger, just to make sure he didn’t get them lost, which left Armin to jump into the backseat, where he slid into the space between them and hopped with joy.

“I’m so pumped!” he cheered. 

Eren smirked, but said nothing.

“Armin, put on your seatbelt,” Mikasa commanded.

He didn’t hear.

They coursed through a mirage of trees and cracked roads, curved streets and vast highways, all the while listening to Armin chatter about the beach. Eren felt bad that this day had to be so gray, because for all he knew, it could be Armin’s last visit to the ocean, the last time he’d get to sink his bare feet in the sand and fawn over how the sun kissed the waves. 

Music boomed from the car speakers loud enough for Armin to feel the vibrations. Eren saw him bob his head through the rearview mirror. They were almost there. Just ten more minutes and they would be there.

Just ten more minutes.

And yet, Mikasa had to turn around.

She had to turn around and say, “Armin, your seatbelt!”

And he had to say, “What?”

And Eren had to look.

He just had to look.

Before everything went black and a loud, crashing boom disrupted the music, screeching tires puncturing the chorus and shattered glass rose as its crescendo, a mighty pang of metallic instruments banging together in one final blow, until absolute silence consumed the empty streets, nothing but the pathetic squeak of reeling tires echoing off into the morning, leaving a bus driver to scream in terror, all for naught, for there were no ears to hear his plea.

**—o—**

It hurt to breathe.

Eren gasped, his eyes blowing wide open, puncturing the darkness that had consumed him for minutes, hours—he did not know.

Everything was garbled, even the air felt coagulated and too thick to respire. 

He coughed, feeling a crushing weight on his chest, his muscles.

Everything stung.

Groaning, blinking, he began to process what had just occurred. They were in an accident. A bad one. His brain was too shocked to gauge the entirety of it, so he guided it thought by thought, step by step. Blinking, he saw nothing but shattered glass, a giant hole blown right through the middle of the windshield. The world outside of it was extremely still, so dauntingly quiet. He did not know how long it took him to move, to think, to feel, but Mikasa’s quiet moan beside him spurred him to full consciousness.

Mikasa.

He snapped his head sideways to look at her. Her body was limp beside his, her seatbelt the only thing that held it up. Blood fell from a gash below her eye, staining the pallid skin of her cheek and coursing down her neck, ruining her clothes. Her hands were turned skyward, as if pleading to a god.

What god?

Eren sprang free of the wreckage. 

Somehow, he managed to move. How he got out of the car was a mystery to him, but he made it to Mikasa, words spewing from his mouth but never reaching his ears. He knew he was speaking, yelling, asking her questions but she was unresponsive, just sitting there like a flaccid doll.

He was too shocked to cry.

Tears blurred his eyes but never spilled as he tore through the shattered window and began to undo her seatbelt. That damn seatbelt. It wouldn’t budge. It killed him to see her like this. He couldn’t understand what was happening, as if he were stuck in a nightmare. And yet somehow, somehow, he got her out. He carried her through the window and propped her up into his arms.

“Miki,” he breathed, panting. “Miki, can you hear me?”

A groan.

It came from somewhere in the distance. 

Eren gazed around, his heartbeat in his ringing eardrums. Every inch of him was covered in blood. His blood. Mikasa’s blood. The entire world was stained red, and as his eyes dug around his surroundings he saw the crushed vehicle he had been driving only moments ago. It looked like chewed up gum. Some feet away, a truck was stalled on the corner of the street, perfectly unharmed, waiting.

Another groan.

Eren gasped.

“Armin!” he screamed, carrying Mikasa on his back. “Armin? Armin, please god, where are you?”

He found him.

His body laid bent on the side of the street, perfectly still upon a bed of grass. Eren ran as fast as his legs would carry him without dropping Mikasa. He laid her on the grass beside them and crouched down, his hands reaching out to his little friend, his best friend, his Armin.

It was then that he saw the gash on his own palm.

His entire palm bled dark crimson. He couldn’t even feel any pain. How did he get that gash?

It didn’t matter.

Because when he turned to look at Armin again, he saw a gash just like it torn across his flaxen head. 

Eren fell to his knees.

“Armin,” he sobbed, collecting his frail friend in his arms. “Armin. Armin, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

His blue eyes were misty and distant, staring off into the sky.

“Eren?” his friend smiled. “Can you see it?”

Eren stared at him, at the blood that crept over every visible surface of his body, and realized that he had been catapulted off the car through the windshield from the impact. That’s what that giant hole was. 

His body.

“What?” Eren panted. “What are you saying?”

“The beach,” his small friend whispered, trembling in his arms. He felt so light, so cold. “I see it.”

Eren’s eyes glazed over with tears. “Armin….”

“I love the beach,” he said, his frail voice cracking. “I love it so much, Eren.”

“I know,” he cried. “I know, Ar.”

“I’m—”

A jolt coursed through his thin body. Armin winced in pain, screwing his eyes shut.

“Shhh,” Eren held him like a baby, caressing the bloody side of his head. He didn’t know whose blood was whose anymore, did not know where his wounds ended and Armin’s began.

Suddenly, his friend went silent.

“Armin?”

No response.

“Armin!”

Nothing.

In the haunting silence, Eren began to hear a voice. It was his mother’s.

“Mom,” he begged. “Make it stop. Please, please, mommy. Make it stop. It hurts. It hurts so much.”

He felt her gentle touch shroud him, accompany him.

_ It’s okay.  _

And when he gazed down at the lifeless body in his hands, the shock was so great that he could not breathe, could not see, could not function. Everything went black. He felt himself sobbing like he’d never sobbed before, cradling Armin’s corpse so close it jolted with his wails. He cried so much, expelled the last ounce of his energy, so that when he fainted, when his eyes rolled to the back of his skull and his body fell limp onto the ground, they all laid broken on the bloody grass, a lifetime of friendship scattered frigidly among the wreckage. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, to end like this. They were so close. So close.

Only ten minutes from the beach.

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
